


Drag Me Down

by asroarke



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Angst, F/M, Past Abuse, Pining, Siren!Bellamy, Sirens, actual disney princess bellamy blake, princess!clarke
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-24
Updated: 2019-08-12
Packaged: 2020-05-19 01:07:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 29,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19346446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asroarke/pseuds/asroarke
Summary: She lived.And for that, Bellamy has never stopped being punished.A siren AU where Bellamy becomes human and accidentally stumbles onto the very human he failed to kill all those years ago.





	1. Chapter 1

Weak. That’s what Bellamy has always been. His step-father was the first to call him that. First, it was because Bellamy was scared to go on his first hunt alone. That earned a hard hit across the face. But that could have been forgiven… if Bellamy hadn’t returned from his first hunt empty handed.

Being a weak siren is a horrible sin, but it’s unforgivable to be a weak Blake siren. The Blakes are infamous across the seas as a long line of the most powerful killers in the ocean. And as soon as Bellamy failed to kill his first prey, there was no chance he would ever be able to live up to the name.

Luckily, Octavia turned out to be everything he isn’t. On her first kill, she became a legend. Not many sirens manage to kill royals, but Octavia got a king on her first try. Her bloodlust only grew worse after a siren hunter killed Lincoln, and now, she takes down entire ships. She’s revered among the sirens. A god, even. She’s every bit her father’s daughter.

That’s why he shouldn’t be surprised when she strikes Bellamy across the face just like he used to.

It’s his fault, really. Bellamy knows he didn’t have the stomach to take down a ship full of humans, but he followed Octavia and the others anyway. He would have gone unnoticed if it weren’t for the sailor that tried to jump into the water and landed on the rocks.

It was the screaming that broke Bellamy. That scream took him back to his first prey, to the heartbreaking cries from above the surface as he pulled that girl deeper. Bellamy couldn’t listen to any more screams. So, he sang to the sailor, and soon, the screams were replaced with a small smile on his lips. Blood covered the rocks, and his leg was twisted in a way he wouldn’t survive, so Bellamy gave him this small mercy. He took away his pain and gave him a quiet, peaceful death below the surface.

Bellamy hated killing him, but it was kinder this way. A gentle death instead of a slow, agonizing one.

He got one moment of peace before Octavia struck him.

“Why would you do that?” Octavia screams before shoving him backwards. Niylah and Kara linger in the distance, both watching with morbid curiosity. No doubt that all the sirens of Wonkru have been waiting for Octavia to finally deal with her weak brother.

“I killed him. Why are you angry?” Bellamy snaps, and her jaw clicks. Her dark hair flows wildly around her face, not unlike the squid that tried to attack Bellamy last month. Octavia saved him then. He isn’t sure she would make the same decision a second time.

“It was a mercy kill. They don’t get mercy,” she hisses. With a final shove, Octavia takes off, and the others follow, though not without shooting Bellamy dirty looks on the way.

He shouldn’t have come. It’s not like Octavia ever wants him there. But ever since that siren hunter attacked her, he hasn’t been able to stay away. The urge to protect her won’t go away, no matter how many times she calls him weak.

But the strike across his face is different. His mind jerks back to twelve years ago when it was her father’s hand ripping across Bellamy’s face. All this time, he’s been telling himself Octavia isn’t him, but now, all he can see is him. Bellamy sees his anger and frustration and lack of patience. His hatred of humans. It’s been right there in Octavia’s dark eyes all this time. It just took a quick hit to the face for Bellamy to let himself see it.

He doesn’t go back home. He heads toward the shore. Most night, he’ll steal away there anyway and let himself lie in the shallow water to stare up at the surface. The moon is always bright above him, a sharp contrast to the dark part of the sea that the sirens call Polis. His eyes always drift up to the light of the moon, as if he’s drawn to the very things his home is not: the bright and the warm.

Sometimes, when he’s certain no one is watching, he lets his body float to the surface and lifts his head out of the water. The warmth that overtakes him is always too much, but he loves the slight burn. He only lets himself do this at night now after learning the hard way that the sun puts freckles onto his cheeks. Freckles gave his step-father all the evidence he needed to know that Bellamy kept lingering by the surface despite being warned not to.

Tonight, he lets himself indulge in this harmless comfort and savors the burn on his cheeks. Right now, his face must feel as warm as that girl’s did when he reached out to touch her.

When he closes his eyes, he can see her as vividly as if she were right in front of him now.

Twelve years ago, she jumped into the water with a smile on her face as soon as his song reached her ears. Her golden hair rippled through the water with a current of their own. No one had warned Bellamy that a human could be so beautiful.

There was no fight in her as he reached for her small, pale hand and pulled her deeper into the water. No, her bright blue eyes were unafraid. She reached out and let her fingers graze the bruise on his cheek, and it was him that jerked away as soon as the warmth of her skin burned him. It was only then that her eyes shifted, but not into fear. It was something else Bellamy could never quite place.

It was the people above who were terrified. Horrible, pained screams were ripped from the passengers’ throats.

Yet nothing but silent submission from the girl he was drowning. A slow blink of her eyes as he curiously reached out to cup her warm cheek. An easy parting of her lips to let the water finally take her. It was going to be an easy kill. A gentle one.

And then, he heard a woman’s scream from above. It sounded just like his mother’s when she begged his step-father to take his hand off Bellamy’s throat. It was the scream off a mother begging for the life of her child.

Bellamy didn’t think about how his step-father would beat him for coming home without a kill, or about what a stain this action would leave on the ruthless Blake legacy. All he wanted was to not be cruel like his step-father. He wanted to get this girl back up there before the water filled her lungs. He could kill someone else. He didn’t have to kill this girl right in front of someone who loved her.

So, he dragged her body back up to the surface and dove down as far as he could before a hunter spotted him. Human after human jumped into the water to retrieve her despite knowing that a siren lurked nearby. This girl must be very loved to have so many people who want to protect her.

Each body jumping into the water was another chance for Bellamy to take his first prey. Any one of them would do, and his step-father would never know that he let his first prey live. But Bellamy didn’t approach any of them. He watched and listened from a distance, hearing every cry and scream, before finally, he heard the girl coughing up water.

She lived.

And for that, Bellamy has never stopped being punished. Dozens of human corpses and more than a decade later, he is still the weak siren who spared the girl with golden hair and eyes as bright as the skies above.

On nights like these, the memory of that girl is the only friend he has. Maybe he likes coming close to the shore because it means he’s closer to her. Or maybe it’s because the water is warmer here, which reminds him of her brief touch.

His sister says that girl tainted him… that she’s the reason he’s weak and that her touch broke him. But Bellamy knows better. He was always weak. The girl was just the first proof of it. Bellamy has always been a defective siren. There’s no place for him in this ocean.

 _Perhaps you should leave the ocean_.

Bellamy’s eyes widen as he looks around. No one seems to be lingering nearby, but to be safe, Bellamy swims away from the shore.

 _Don’t be afraid_.

“I’m not,” Bellamy snaps, but he still cannot figure out where the voice is coming from. It feels like she is right behind him, but when he spins around, there is nothing but empty ocean.

 _I can feel your fear, Bellamy_.

The water is always cold, but now, the iciness burns much like the warmth above the surface did. Every siren grows up hearing tales about ALIE. What she is, no one is quite sure. His mother warned him that she creeps into the mind, making her victims go mad much like the siren’s song does to humans.

 _I don’t make anyone go mad_.

His suspicion is confirmed, and Bellamy stops swimming. “What do you want?”

 _To help, Bellamy. You’re miserable. Your heart is weak like a human’s_.

Sirens can’t cry, but he feels his eyes prickle at those words. “Can you fix it?” he asks, his voice sounding broken. If she could fix it, Bellamy could find a way to be happy as a siren. Maybe even earn his sister’s forgiveness.

 _That’s not what you want_.

“I don’t know what I want.”

_So, you don’t want to live above the surface?_

Her question echoes in his mind, buzzing with the same tempting warmth that lies just above the surface. It’s not possible, of course. Sirens can only stay out of the water for brief moments of time. He can’t live on land.

 _As a human, I mean_.

“What?”

_Would you like to be a human, Bellamy?_

He hears the cries of relief when that girl coughed up the ocean water. He feels her warm hand on his cheek. He envies the warm, happy life she must have with all those people who love her. “Yes,” he tells ALIE, confessing the one secret he has kept buried all his life. Bellamy wants to be like her. His weak heart might survive up there.

 _I can make you into one. You’ll never have to see the ocean again if you don’t want to. But I do want something in return_.

Of course, she does. Sirens don’t speak of ALIE’s acts of kindness, after all.

_One more sacrifice._

“Another kill.”

_A royal one._

“Why royal? They’re all the same,” he huffs.

_Do we have a deal?_

He shouldn’t. Not when she is so clearly avoiding his question. But his eyes keep flickering up to the moon above the surface. Bellamy hears screams he never wants to hear again. And he sees that girl, as clearly as if it happened yesterday, and the way her gown shimmered and glistened in the water, flowing gently and peacefully as she plummeted to her almost death.

“Yes,” he whispers, so quickly that he barely forms the single syllable. To be human would mean never hearing those screams or dragging a human to their death again.

But as soon as the word leaves his lips, he can’t breathe. Water sits in his mouth like normal, but it burns now.

Frantically, Bellamy tries to swim up, but his fins aren’t working properly. When he looks down, he realizes why: he has no fins. Bellamy has legs now. Human legs.

He’s drowning. If water wasn’t filling his lungs, he could laugh at the irony of it. A drowning siren. All of Wonkru would have a good laugh about that.

_If you survive, remember our deal._

His legs are fairly useless. It’s a wonder all humans don’t drown with these things. Eventually, he kicks up enough that his head breaks the surface. Saltwater falls from his mouth as he gasps for air. He barely gets a gulp in before his head goes back under.

It’s easier to get back up the second time, but it only lasts a few moments. Bellamy bobs like that in the water too many times, desperately gasping for air before he falls back under. He needs to get to the shore. But everything feels off. His body feels heavier with these legs. The weight distribution is off, and if he stops focusing entirely on keeping his head above water for even a second, he goes under.

This time when he falls beneath the surface, he feels something touch him. Like a hand. For a moment, he fears that his sister followed him and now knows what he did, but the touch is too warm to be from a siren’s hand.

No, it’s warm like a human’s hand.


	2. Chapter 2

He gasps loudly as he is pulled above the surface again, the saltwater burning the back of his throat. Why does it burn now?

All these years of pulling humans under, and Bellamy had no idea drowning hurt this much.

“You’re okay,” he hears a warm voice choke out. He’s not, though. Today started with killing an injured sailor and being hit by Octavia for it, and it ended with some kind of sea witch turning him human while he was still in the middle of the ocean, nearly killing him. Bellamy is not okay. This is least okay he has ever been.

He sucks in another breath, waiting to fall back underwater, but he never does. An arm is wrapped tight around his waist, keeping him from falling again. He wants to turn and see who is helping him, but he’s terrified of doing anything that might make him slip back beneath the surface again. So, he stays perfectly still and lets the human pull him toward the shore. His rescuer’s breathing is ragged, strained sounding.

It feels like forever, but eventually, his new feet graze sand.

“You should be able to stand now.” The grip loosens around him, and Bellamy falls. “Oh, I’m so sorry. I thought—” Arms come up under his armpits, pulling him back up, and the only thing he sees is yellowish gold. “What was I thinking? You were just drowning. I’m so sorry,” she says breathlessly. “Are you alright?”

A small amount of water coughs itself out of his throat, and he feels a hand pat against his back. Bellamy can’t remember the last time someone touched him like this, all soft and comforting.

His eyes flicker up to finally see his rescuer, and he loses his balance in her hold as soon as he sees those blue eyes. He knows these eyes. He knows them better than he knows his own. It’s her. It’s the girl he couldn’t kill.

“Easy, easy,” she whispers as he’s guided toward the shore. Her voice is so soft and warm, somehow more so than her gentle touch.

He can’t believe what he’s seeing. Same dark lashes and pale skin. The golden hair looks different, but he remembers it flowing wildly underwater, not resting damp on her shoulders. The same mole rests above her pink lips. And those eyes… those are definitely the very eyes that stared back into his as he dragged her down into the water.

He tried to drown her. And she just saved him from that horrible fate.

Clumsily, he follows her to the shore. He nearly knocks her over as soon as they leave the water, but he pushes her away so that he’s the only one that plummets to the sand.

“Oh!” she screams, all worried like the people on board the ship did for her. She shouldn’t worry about him, not after what he did to her. “Are you okay?” She falls to her knees and rolls him onto his back. Her eyes scan him for injury. When her eyes drift down toward his legs, she quickly jerks her gaze away. Hurriedly, she jumps up and moves away.

“Don’t leave,” he begs. Those are the first words to fall off his lips above water. His voice sounds different up here, all low and gravelly.

“Sorry, I just didn’t realize you were not, uh—” He feels something light fall on him. Bellamy furrows his eyebrows when he sees some kind of cloth now covering everything but his torso. Odd. Maybe she thinks he’s cold. “What, uh, what were you doing out there?”

“Drowning,” he shrugs.

“Well, I know that,” she huffs as she gets back down onto the sand beside him. There’s a crease in her brow now. She must not have liked that answer. “How did you end up out there, though? And at night too?”

Does she not recognize him? The girl should be furious and lashing out for what he did to her. Why is she trying to take care of him? If she recognizes him, then she shouldn’t try to help him. And if she doesn’t, then why does she care? She doesn’t know him. If a siren who doesn’t know Bellamy sees him struggling, they would just move on. Are humans different? Or is it just this one?

“I don’t… I don’t know,” he mumbles. The crease grows, and he doesn’t like that at all. But he doesn’t know what to tell her. He’s fairly certain he can’t tell a human that he was having a normal night as a siren before some kind of invisible sea witch turned him human and let him drown out there. And definitely not to the very human he tried to kill twelve years ago. “I’m sorry. I don’t remember.”

“Did you hit your head?” she whispers. Before he can answer, her fingers weave through his hair, moving in a comforting, rhythmic way. Bellamy’s eyes fall shut at the calming touch. Her fingers are warm against his scalp, just like he remembers feeling them on his cheeks. “I don’t feel anything. Do you know your name?”

“Bellamy.”

“Bellamy,” she repeats. Even his name sounds lovely falling off her lips. One of her hands slides down and rests on his cheek, and his heart, his new human heart, feels like it might beat itself out of its chest. It feels just like before, just like it did on the day he last saw her. “Open your eyes for me.”

When he does, her bright eyes bore into his, like they are searching for something. The blue isn’t as piercing as all those years ago, not out here in the dead of night. But they still feel as comforting.

The bright moon is eclipsed by her head, creating a small halo of light around her pale features. It’s beautiful. She’s beautiful. How could he have tried to drown someone so precious?

Moving his arm through the air has less resistance than in the water, so when he reaches for her, his hand meets her warm cheek too quickly, making her jump. But she doesn’t jerk away. She just watches him with concerned eyes, not all that different than how she watched him underwater all those years ago.

After a beat, she swallows and pulls back her hands. He misses her touch immediately but says nothing. Bellamy hadn’t realized how touch-starved he had been until now.

“Do you not remember what happened to you?”

“I don’t,” he lies, and her face falls.

“Do you have somewhere to go? Where is your home?”

His eyes flicker to the sea automatically, and his chest tightens. Bellamy doesn’t have a home and hasn’t for a while now.

She must take his silence as a no because she whispers, “Would you like to come home with me?”

He shouldn’t. Bellamy should stay as far away from this girl as possible. He doesn’t deserve her kindness, regardless of if she remembers what he did to her or not. But every time he tries to open his mouth and say no, he can’t. For years, he’s dreamt of her, wondering what happened after he brought her to the surface. And now, she’s right in front of him. He can’t just leave her.

“Yes,” he replies, breathing easier now.

“Your Highness!” a voice booms, and her head swivels in the opposite direction. “What are you—”

She moves between the man approaching them and Bellamy, obscuring his view. “I rescued him from drowning, Kane.” Bellamy cranes his neck a bit and sees a handful of men in dark clothes. The one in front is talking to her, his eyes skeptically moving back and forth between the girl and Bellamy.

“You went into the ocean?” the man, Kane, barks. “What am I supposed to tell your mother?”

“That I wasn’t going to let someone drown. Now please, will you give Bellamy your jacket? He’s freezing.”

Kane’s eyes soften and he does as she asks. “You cannot keep running off like this,” he says softly as he hands her the jacket. Something exchanges between their eyes that Bellamy can’t understand.

She kneels down beside Bellamy again. “Could you sit up for me?” she whispers. She guides him, ever so slowly, to sit up. Her warm hands slide and rest against his bare back and chest as she gets him upright, each touch sending ripples of warmth through him. It takes a few moments, but she finally gets the garment on him.

Ringing her hair out, she looks back at Kane. “Look at you,” he sighs. “If your mother sees you like this, she will have a heart attack, Clarke.” Finally, a name for the girl that has been haunting his dreams for years. Clarke. It’s lovely like her.

“Kane,” she sighs.

“Your Highness,” Kane corrects quickly. That’s the second time he’s called her that.

Before Bellamy can form a question, two of the other men start pulling him up while Kane fastens the cloth around his waist. Bellamy’s feet fall flat on the sand, and Bellamy feels himself drifting to the side.

“Be careful,” she says, running up to him and putting her hands on his waist while the two men put their arms under his armpits to hold him up. “He’s a bit disoriented and might not be able to walk yet.” Her eyes flicker up to meet Bellamy’s, and her reassuring smile puts him back at ease. “You’ll be alright. Don’t worry,” she whispers.

“Your Highness?” he asks, and she nods.

“Sorry,” she chuckles. “Princess Clarke of Arkadia at your service.”

She’s a princess. Bellamy had tried to drown an actual princess all those years ago. All this time he thought it was some girl aboard a ship, but now all those men diving into the water after her makes sense.

If she’s royal, then she’s the kind of sacrifice ALIE wants in exchange for his human form.

Bellamy shakes that thought out of his head. Not her. Not Clarke. He’ll find someone else. There must be other royals.

“Murphy, Monty, get him to a healer. I’m taking the Princess back—”

“No, Bellamy is coming with me,” Clarke interrupts.

A low laugh comes from the man on Bellamy’s right, and Kane just blinks in Clarke’s direction. After a beat, Kane says, “Apparently, we’re all going back to the castle.” Clarke grins triumphantly.

The two men try to guide Bellamy forward, but both grunt in frustration. “Can you at least try to walk?” the one on his right mutters.

Right, walking. That’s a thing humans know how to do. He drops his head and watches the ground. It looks simple when these men do it, just a foot in front of the other. So, he imitates it as best as he can. On his third or fourth try, the one on his right says, “Finally.”

“Shut up, Murphy,” the other one snaps. So, the pale one with the scowl is Murphy, and the quieter one must be Monty.

“It’s been a long night. Excuse me,” Murphy snaps.

“It’s part of the job. You knew that when you signed up for it.”

“I signed up to keep an eye on a princess, not chase after her every time she breaks out.”

“You wouldn’t have to do that if you had just been outside her door like you were supposed to be,” Monty snaps.

“The door locks from the outside. How was I supposed to know she would use the window?” Murphy’s head turns, and Bellamy meets his dark eyes. “Alright, settle this for me. If you were in charge of watching a princess who is locked in her—”

“Leave him alone. He almost died tonight,” Monty interrupts. Bellamy lets out a sigh of relief. He’s too tired to keep up with their conversation, let alone contribute to it.

The two of them carry on their argument, and Bellamy keeps his focus on the walking thing. Occasionally, he lifts his gaze from the ground and sees Clarke’s damp golden hair swaying just ahead of him as she walks with Kane. The two of them are deep in conversation, but it’s all whispers. He can’t hear any of it. She looks tired. Perhaps saving him was more exhausting than she let on.

Sand turns into grass and grass turns to stone beneath his feet, and though the journey feels like it’s taken all night, the moon is still shining brightly overhead when Bellamy looks up to see the castle. He’s seen it from a distance a few times, only in the brief moments that he lets his head rise above the waters before the warmth became too much. It had always looked like a dream. Up close, there are cracks in the stone and plants growing up the side of the structure. Less dreamlike and more real.

He steals another look at Clarke when she glances over her shoulder to check on him. She’s more real now too but still like something out of a dream. Of all the humans that could have saved him, what were the odds it would be her?

“Alright, we’ve got a few steps here,” Monty says as they approached the raised ground. Bellamy follows their lead, moving his feet the same way they do as they climb. As he gets closer to the door, he sees more men dressed like Murphy and Monty, all carrying weapons like the men on ships carry. Guards, he’s guessing. They have those in Wonkru too.

Inside, it’s bright. No more darkness of night. The room is illuminated with small flickering lights, and it’s almost enough to trick him into believing it’s day. But there’s an opening in the wall that reveals the moon still hanging high in the sky.

A small chuckle escapes his lips, and Murphy gives him an odd look. But Bellamy can’t help it. It’s clever. The humans have figured out how to make it day regardless of where the sun and the moon are.

His excitement over this discovery is short lived because a scream echoes in the room… a scream he has definitely heard before. Bellamy never forgets a scream. A woman comes barreling toward them, heading straight for Clarke. She’s older, perhaps the age his mother would have been. Her hands take Clarke’s face as her eyes scan her body for injury.

“What happened?” the woman asks before pressing a frantic kiss to Clarke’s forehead. Oh, this must be her mother, the Queen.

“Your Majesty—” Kane says, but the Queen holds her hand up to stop him.

There are tears streaming down the Queen’s face. Panicked, desperate tears. She keeps turning Clarke’s head from side to side… not unlike how his mother used to fret over him. Bellamy misses her.

“I’m fine,” Clarke reassures, taking her mother’s hands in her own. “I never meant to get in the water. But he was drowning.”

The Queen’s eyes finally leave her daughter and fall on Bellamy. They soften as she takes in his appearance, and she looks back at Clarke. After a beat, she pulls Clarke into her chest and presses a kiss to the top of her head. The two of them hold each other like that for a moment before the Queen finally exhales and lets Clarke go.

“We’ll have a room made up for him,” she says before looking back at Bellamy. “And some, uh, clothes will be brought to him.” With a flick of her head, Bellamy feels Monty and Murphy start to move him again. But Clarke doesn’t seem to be going with him.

His eyes flicker to Clarke’s, and in an instant, she’s running up to him and putting a comforting hand just above his heart. “It’s alright,” she tells him. “You’ll get cleaned up, have a good night of sleep, and I’ll see you first thing in the morning. I promise.”

“You promise?” he asks, and a small smile forms on her lips. It’s beautiful.

“I promise.” His shoulders relax, and he lets Monty and Murphy guide him out of the room.

He will see her again, and knowing that makes each step lighter.


	3. Chapter 3

Many things about being human are confusing. No one has explained to him why he has to sit in a tub of water for a “bath” when he was just in the ocean surrounded by water. They scrub all the salt off his skin, leaving him feeling raw and exposed and not at all like a siren.

It’s both a comfort and a horror to remember he isn’t a siren anymore. But he isn’t quite human yet, not until he figures out how it all works and not until he finds a way to honor his deal with ALIE. The obvious answer is not a solution. But where there is one royal, there is bound to be others. Bellamy can find another sacrifice, maybe an older or sick one. It could be a mercy kill, just like the ones he did as a siren.

While the servants help him get ready for bed, Bellamy plays up being disoriented to excuse away anything he does that might seem weird. They seem to buy it.

Murphy doesn’t, but he’s amused all the same as Bellamy struggles to figure out which hole in the shirt they want him to put his head through. He doesn’t try to help as Bellamy fumbles his way to the bed, which is somehow softer than it looks. Murphy just leans against the wall, crosses his arms, and watches silently as the servants dismiss themselves.

“Isn’t it your job to guard the Princess?” Bellamy asks him.

“Normally, yes. But seeing that she broke out of the castle and went into the ocean on my watch, I’ve been reassigned,” he mutters.

“What’s wrong with being in the water?” Bellamy shrugs. From what he’s seen, humans love swimming in the water. And there’s no harm in it since the sirens don’t like the shallow part.

Murphy cocks his head to the side and says, “The Princess is not allowed in the ocean.”

“Why not?”

He scoffs. “Why not? You’re not from here, are you?” Bellamy shakes his head. “You haven’t heard about the siren?”

His stomach forms knots as he sinks lower into the pillow. Clarke didn’t seem to recognize him earlier, so he assumed that meant she didn’t remember. Or at least not much of it. She was young when it happened, as was he. But it’s possible she remembers all of it and simply didn’t recognize Bellamy as the siren. He’s bigger now. No longer the paler, skinny siren who had never seen the sunlight before that day, but muscled and tanned from too many hours spent close to the surface. 

Now that he thinks about it, why would she recognize him as the siren who attacked her? She has no reason to think a siren could suddenly grow legs. Any resemblance he bears to the creature that tried to kill her would be shrugged off as a coincidence.

“The Princess was six when it tried to take her,” Murphy explains. “Then, miraculously, she floated to the surface. No one knows what happened when it took her under, but for some reason, it let her go.”

“And she was okay?” Bellamy asks.

“Physically, yes. But as soon as she was breathing on the deck again, she tried to jump off the ship a second time.” That Bellamy does not remember, but he didn’t linger around the ship after hearing Clarke cough up water. Siren hunters weren’t as common back then, but Bellamy still knew to be wary of them. “She was crying and saying there was a boy down there who needed her help or something.”

Was she talking about him? Why would she think he needed help? He was trying to kill her.

“She was talking like a crazy person, I heard. They had to lock her in the captain’s quarters for the whole trip home to keep her from throwing herself overboard. And it didn’t get better once she came home. Every chance she got, she tried to go down to the shore and get back in the ocean.”

Something sharp twists in his stomach. The siren’s song should have worn off.

“King Jacob enlisted every expert he could find back when he was still alive. The theory they came up with is that Clarke is still under the siren’s spell, even now. That’s why her mind’s all broken.”

“Now? It’s been more than a decade,” Bellamy says.

“I don’t know what to tell you. But it’s gotten easier to deal with. It used to be that she would try to go to the water all the time. Lately, it’s just been at night.”

At night… when Bellamy just so happens to be closest to the shore.

She _is_ being drawn to him. The theory makes sense, though he has never heard of something like this happening before. Then again, other sirens wouldn’t have done what Bellamy did. As far as he knows, he’s the only one who has let one slip away.

It explains how Clarke found him out in the water. She was being pulled to him, just like she was when he first lured her into the water twelve years ago. He knew it couldn’t be a coincidence that she was the human to find him.

“Alright. Don’t sneak out on me. The Princess would kill me,” Murphy says as he walks to the door. “Good night. Congratulations on not dying.”

The door clicks closed, and his room falls into darkness. Every time he closes his eyes, he sees her. This memory of Clarke has been a comfort all these years. Like a friend that is his and his alone. Someone who doesn’t see him as weak or broken. Her touch was so gentle and warm despite what he is, and Bellamy has been chasing that warmth ever since. Stealing away to the surface to feel it again, inching closer to the shore each night…

But while she has been his comfort, he has been her torment. The siren. The reason she cannot touch the water. A constant pull toward the very thing that almost killed her.

Bellamy shakes his head. No, Clarke doesn’t seem haunted. She’s very much the same as he remembers her. Warm, kind, and gentle. On the beach, she handled him with such care. Each gentle touch made his skin buzz and warm like nothing in that sea ever could.

Murphy must be mistaken. They all must be. The siren’s song didn’t break her mind. She’s still the sweet girl that reached out and touched his cheek as he pulled her under, as if she knew how scared he was and wanted to comfort him as he made his first kill. And tonight, she saved his life without even knowing him.

Maybe the song is still pulling her toward him, but Clarke is fine. He’s seen it with his own eyes. Bellamy didn’t hurt her.

Sleep doesn’t come easy at first. No waves are there to rock him to sleep. It’s too quiet in the castle. The bed is far too soft. But when sleep does come, it’s heavy. No dreams. Just thick darkness like the kind he grew up in.

A small squeaking sound ultimately wakes him, and when he opens his eyes, it’s far too bright. Bellamy covers his eyes with his arm and groans.

“I’m sorry,” Clarke whispers. “I thought you would already be awake.”

“It’s alright,” he grumbles. Footsteps pad across the floor, and when he blinks his eyes open this time, it’s not as bright.

“Is that better?” she asks. He blinks until his eyes can focus on her. Just behind Clarke, he sees that half the window is covered now.

“Yes, thank you.” She smiles again, and his throat grows dry.

She looks different now, but then again, Bellamy has only ever seen her soaked in ocean water. Her golden hair isn’t stringy and damp anymore. It’s soft and curly, pinned neatly out of her face. She’s dressed in blue, the exact shade of her eyes.

“How are you feeling?” she asks as he pushes himself upright.

“Better.”

She stops a few feet away from the bed, and his chest pangs. Perhaps if she thought he still hurt, she might have touched his cheek or ran her fingers through his hair like she did last night. But instead, she stands just out of reach.

“Good, good,” she murmurs, and her gaze drops to the floor. “Do you remember what happened?”

“I drowned.”

“Before that.” Bellamy furrows his brows. “How did you drown? Did you fall off a ship or were you out for a swim? You were very far out, Bellamy.”

“I don’t know.” He ducks his head.

“Did you see anything in the water?”

“No, there was nothing…” It takes him a moment to realize what she’s really asking him. “Are you asking if I saw a siren?”

Clarke sits down on his bed, right up against his new legs. Close, but not as close as he wants her. “Did you?”

“No. There was no siren,” he lies. Her shoulders slump, and she turns her head away.

“Well,” she sighs, “I had to ask.” Her eyes soften as soon as she turns back to look at him. “Some people were asking, is all. The people of Arkadia are rather fearful of sirens.”

“Because one attacked you?”

“He didn’t attack me,” Clarke snaps. Bellamy isn’t sure what throws him more: that she insists that wasn’t an attack or that she refers to Bellamy as _he_ instead of _it_ like Murphy did last night. “Sorry. A lot of people think they know what happened, and they don’t. No one listens to me.”

“I’ll listen to you.” She ducks her head to hide her smile, and for a moment, he thinks she will tell him more. But instead, she pushes herself off the bed and shakes her head.

“Another time, maybe. And that’s not even Arkadia’s full story with the sirens,” she sighs. Bellamy sinks back into the pillow. He doesn’t like the sound of that. “A few people may have questions for you.”

“About me drowning?”

“About if you saw a siren. I’ve already told McCreary there was no siren out there, but he doesn’t believe me.”

“I’ll tell him the same thing,” he replies. Clarke’s hand rests on the bed post, and slowly, she leans into it. Her eyes are studying him, much like they did last night when she was trying to assess if he was hurt.

“What happened to your cheek?” she asks. When Bellamy’s hand grazes the side of his face, he feels an all too familiar ache. Octavia must have left a bruise on him.

“That’s probably from one of the many times I fell last night,” he laughs, but something shifts in Clarke’s expression.

Her silence is deafening, and he can’t make sense of this odd look in her eyes. Finally, she asks, “Have we met before?” Bellamy swears his heart stops beating. “I feel like I know you, but I can’t place where from.”

He could tell her the truth. If anyone were to be trusted with his secret, it would be her. But these humans seem more concerned with sirens than others, which means he might not be safe here if his secret is exposed. Clarke has been kind so far, but he did try to kill her all those years ago. Bellamy doubts she would still care for him if she knew what he is.

“I think I would remember someone like you,” he tells her. Clarke’s lips part and her eyes flicker away from his gaze. A lovely pink covers her usually pale cheeks.

“Uh, well, alright then,” she stutters out before pushing herself off the bedpost. “I’ll let the kitchen know you’re awake. You must be starving.” She turns back to look at him one more time. “Do you think you will feel well enough to come to dinner tonight?”

Bellamy isn’t sure what he’s agreeing to, but he nods anyway. That makes her smile, so it must be the right answer.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [ We've got a playlist now! ](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6O8FLqaFkVf6V2EIcEoufE?si=F8PMPMYIS6SSouzZFkM1WA)

The rest of his day goes by at an agonizingly slow pace. The food they bring him is delicious, but Harper, the girl who brings it to him, gives him strange looks as he eats. Bellamy must be doing it wrong. He’ll have to watch what Clarke does when he goes to dinner later.

Once Harper takes his tray away, Bellamy decides to practice walking again. He falls immediately, only this time with no Clarke to catch him. He uses the bed to pull himself up. The second time, he lets himself stand upright, keeping his hands on the bed in case he falls. After a few moments, he gets the hang of it. It’s all about balance.

Slowly, he moves his feet one at a time toward the wall, never once removing his hand from the bed. Miraculously, he makes it, and Bellamy erupts into excited laughter. Next, he walks a straight line against the wall. After that, he follows the wall to the window. Bellamy isn’t sure how many times he does this, but adrenaline rushes through him each time he makes it without incident. Slowly, he works up to walking to the bed without using the wall. And it feels like magic when his arms loop around the bed post after making it safely across.

Maybe he can be human after all.

The next obstacle is the stack of clothes Monty brought for him. He’s seen enough articles like these that he should know how to put them on, but Bellamy has never paid much attention to human clothes before. The pants are easy enough to figure out. It’s the shirt that he ends up fighting. How can humans see which hole to poke their head through?

“Where did our Princess find you?” he hears Murphy laugh. Thankfully, he does approach and guides Bellamy toward the correct hole.

He doesn’t understand Murphy’s question. He was there last night when Clarke found him, after all. “In the ocean,” Bellamy reminds him. Finally, he can see again. Quickly, he manages to get his arms through the sleeves on his own. “Is it time for dinner?”

“It is. Get your shoes on.” Bellamy follows his gaze to the boots on the ground. He looks down at Murphy’s feet, and the boots don’t look too complicated to put on. So, he pulls them onto his feet, trying to make them look just like Murphy’s do. Once they’re both on, his eyes flicker up to Murphy, who isn’t giving him a strange look for once, so he must have done it right.

Walking is a little harder with them on, but no one they pass looks at him odd, so this must be how it’s supposed to be. The walk isn’t particularly long, though far longer than any of his walks inside his small room. He finds himself a bit winded as Murphy opens a door from him, but the exhaustion lifts from his muscles as soon as he locates Clarke amongst the dozens of people seated at a table.

She’s wearing the same dress as earlier, but some of her hair has fallen into her face now. Clarke doesn’t see him enter right away. She’s too busy saying something to the man across the table. But as Bellamy approaches, a smile forms on her lips.

“Bellamy.” She taps the seat next to her, and he takes it. “How are you feeling?”

“Good.” The man across the table narrows his eyes at Bellamy. His beard is scraggly, and dark markings are scattered across his neck. He doesn’t look like anyone else he’s seen in the castle. More like the kinds of men his sister would lure off pirate ships.

“You must be the one who drowned,” the man says, and there is an odd smile on his lips… one that makes his stomach clench. Bellamy’s body tenses in an all too familiar way. A few sirens give off a similar energy, like his sister after a good kill.

“His name is Bellamy, as I’ve already told you,” Clarke replies. Her smile is pleasant enough, but her tone is harsh. “Bellamy, this is Paxton McCreary.”

McCreary’s elbows rest on the table as he leans forward in his seat. “Did you see anything when you went under?” he asks.

“Shouldn’t you ask me how I’m doing first?” Bellamy quips. When he looks over at Clarke, her hand is hiding her smirk. “Why do you want to know?”

“It’s relevant for my next business venture,” he quips back.

“Business venture,” Clarke scoffs. “What a creative way to say murder.”

All amusement leaves McCreary’s face as his eyes zero in on Clarke. He’s trying to intimidate her, but she keeps her eyes on him, raising her eyebrows in a challenge. “It’s not murder,” he hisses.

“I don’t understand. What is it that you do?” Bellamy asks.

The scowl is replaced by a smirk as McCreary looks at Bellamy. “I’m a siren hunter,” he replies, and Bellamy’s blood turns cold.

His eyes fall back to the markings on his neck. While he has never seen a siren hunter before, his sister has had many close calls. Some of them wear marks just like those, one for each siren they’ve killed. And McCreary seems to have too many of them. For all Bellamy knows, he could be staring right at the man who killed Lincoln. Maybe even the one who almost killed his sister.

Soup is brought out to everyone. Clarke grabs one of the silver utensils, so Bellamy mirrors her. His hand shakes as he tries to dip it into the warm liquid.

“Bellamy,” Clarke whispers, reaching over to rest her hand on his arm. “Are you alright?” He realizes belatedly that he grabbed a different utensil than she did. Hers is smooth and round, and he picked up one with four little spikes. Before anyone notices, Bellamy corrects his mistake.

“Yes,” he lies. As if he could be alright when sitting across from the very creature from his nightmares. Why is a siren hunter here? Surely, the Queen doesn’t realize that’s what he is otherwise he wouldn’t be in her home.

Or maybe she knows exactly what he is and that’s why he’s here. Clarke did say something about Arkadia having a siren problem.

“So, you sure you didn’t see any sirens while you were drowning?” McCreary asks, and Bellamy shakes his head. “But you were a perfect target. Drowning all alone. Why would a siren pass up that opportunity?”

“The water was too shallow. It’d be too easy to spot one, so they wouldn’t risk it. Plus, sirens hate warm water,” Bellamy blurts out before he can think better of it. McCreary’s eyes widen, and the conversations around them seem to come to a halt. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Clarke staring up at him.

“You know a lot about sirens,” McCreary says, and Bellamy shrugs awkwardly. “You a hunter too?” Beside him, Clarke drops the silver utensil into her soup.

“No, I’ve just heard things,” he murmurs. The conversation doesn’t pick back up, and when Bellamy looks down the table, even the Queen is watching him with interest.

“You know, we’ve set a bounty for Blodreina,” Queen Abigail tells him. “If you know something that might help us find it, we will greatly reward you.”

“Who is—” Bellamy doesn’t get the question out before Clarke pushes back her chair and storms out of the dining room.

He starts to follow after her, but one of the guards gestures for him to stay seated. Kane takes off after her, and the table returns their focus back to the food. When Bellamy looks over at the Queen, there is a sad look in her eyes. Conversation resumes, but she stays silent. Doesn’t even look up when others try to engage her in conversation. So, she does know what McCreary does. Encourages it, even.

He should have suspected it. A siren tried to kill her daughter. Makes sense she’d want a few siren hunters around. If a human killed his sister, he’d feel the same way. But he still feels sick, like he’s betraying his kind by being here with him.

And for the first time since Clarke saved him, he doesn’t feel safe here.

Bellamy suffers through two more courses in silence, only occasionally fending off a question from the murderer across from him. He figures out that the Queen is the only other royal at the table. All the rest are nobles and advisors and one monstrous siren hunter. But finding a royal is secondary to his first concern.

As soon as the meal concludes, Bellamy finds Murphy standing outside.

“Where did Clarke go?” he asks.

“How would I know? I’m assigned to watch you, not her.” Bellamy lets out a groan and begins walking down the hallway. “Do you even know where you’re going?”

“Not a clue,” Bellamy mumbles. Nor does he have a clue where Clarke would run off to. Navigating the ocean is easy enough, but this castle is confusing.

“Alright, follow me,” Murphy grumbles. Before Bellamy can ask anything, Murphy’s hand wraps around Bellamy’s wrist and he begins pulling him down the other corridor. “If I were you, I would leave the Princess alone. She gets real upset about the whole siren hunting thing.”

“Then why are there siren hunters here?” Bellamy trips over his own foot as he speaks, but luckily, Murphy doesn’t see it.

“They all want the reward for killing Blodreina. McCreary is docked here for the night, but he will go back out tomorrow to try and kill it.”

“And Blodreina is…?”

Murphy stops walking and turns around slowly. “The siren who killed the King,” Murphy says with an eyeroll. He resumes walking, but Bellamy can’t seem to make his legs work. He only knows of one siren who has killed a king. “Now, it takes down our cargo ships. A few sailors have fled to lifeboats and lived to tell the tale. They say it has hair and eyes as dark as night.”

It has to be Octavia they’re hunting. And Bellamy isn’t sure he can blame them. A pirate killed Lincoln years ago, and now Octavia takes down every ship she can find as revenge, not caring that these ships have nothing to do with what happened to him. How could he blame the humans for wanting revenge on her after she killed their king and all those sailors?

“I thought you wanted to see the Princess,” Murphy calls out. Shakily, Bellamy follows after him, tucking away his fears for later.

But he feels like he could throw up all the incredible food he just ate. His sister is being hunted. On some level, he already knew that. It couldn’t be a coincidence that Octavia had so many close calls. But it’s so much worse than he feared. An entire kingdom is after her for some silly reward like jewels or gold. That’s always what humans were after in the stories his mother told him. He never could understand why, though. They’re pretty but useless.

Murphy takes him down a long, dark hallway. At the end is a door that leads to a deck overlooking the ocean. Clarke is lying down on the stone ground, her eyes looking up at the moon.

“I said I would talk to her later, Kane,” Clarke groans.

“Not Kane,” Murphy says, and Clarke’s head pops up. Her eyes soften as soon as she sees Bellamy. Murphy tiptoes back inside and shuts the door behind him.

“Sorry I left you,” Clarke whispers. Bellamy tries to sit himself on the ground beside her, but he ends up slipping. He lands on his back all the same, only this way with more pain in his back and embarrassment flooding his cheeks. “I couldn’t listen to that anymore.”

He searches her eyes, looking for any sign that she hates sirens as much as McCreary does, but he finds nothing but sad eyes, much like her mother’s.

“How many hunters are there?”

“A dozen or so. The number is growing by the day as people hear of the reward,” Clarke mutters. After a beat, she notices that he isn’t following. “Arkadia has lost many ships with precious cargo to siren attacks, which means we have little left to offer. But it turns out that offering me and the crown that comes with that marriage is enough to trick dozens of foolish men to risk their lives to chase after sirens.”

“Wait, you have to marry the person who kills O—Blodreina?” His mind flashes back to McCreary and the markings all the way down his neck. That could be the man Clarke marries. No, no. That can’t be. Clarke is kind. Kind enough to save a stranger and continue to take care of him. She doesn’t deserve this. She doesn’t deserve to be forced to marry a killer. “You can’t.”

“I don’t have a choice,” Clarke sighs. “Not in any of it. Never have. But I have some time.”

“What if McCreary kills her tomorrow?”

“He won’t.” There’s a strange certainty in her voice, one that he finds oddly comforting. “I’ve been bribing fishermen and sailors to give out false reports of siren sightings for months. Most of these so called siren hunters are chasing dead ends I gave them. The only one that hasn’t fallen for it is Cage.” She pauses, and he doesn’t like her frown. “If I’m being honest, he will probably be the one to get her. He’s already gotten close once.” Clarke shudders.

She must be talking about the hunter that almost killed Octavia.

“I can’t figure out how to stop him. He’s too smart,” she mutters, shaking her head. “He knows too much about the sirens, and who knows what he did to all the innocent ones to learn all this?”

_Innocent_ throws him. The others talk about sirens as if they’re monsters. Why doesn’t Clarke? Bellamy almost killed her. She should think sirens are monsters. She’s seen it firsthand.

“You think there are innocent sirens out there?”

“I know there is at least one. I’ve seen him,” she whispers, and his throat grows dry. She turns her head back in his direction. “Don’t you think there are innocent sirens out there?”

There isn’t a siren out there without blood on their hands. But it’s not like they have much of a choice. They have to kill to survive. But looking at Clarke’s wide eyes now, he wants to believe in such a thing as an innocent siren. He wants to be the innocent siren she thinks he is… as if him sparing her life could be proof of innocence.

“Bellamy,” she murmurs, “why do you know so much about sirens?” He blinks a few times. “If you aren’t a siren hunter, I mean. Only hunters know that much about sirens.”

“I’ve heard a lot of stories, is all,” he replies, and it’s not exactly a lie. His mother knows the history of the sirens and would tell him the stories as he drifted off to sleep at night. Bellamy did the same with Octavia after she was born.

Clarke turns onto her side to face him. “Will you tell me about them?” Her eyes are wide as she asks, almost pleading.

“They like the dark. And the cold. It’s why they never get too close to the shore. It’s too bright and warm for them.” She’s still staring at him, waiting for him to continue. “Uh, what else do you want to know?”

“Do they have families?”

Bellamy expected her to ask about why they killed or how the song worked. Not that.

“Yes.”

“So, they can love and care about each other just like humans do.”

When he closes his eyes, he sees his mother, exhausted but still mustering up enough energy to wrap him in her arms. And he sees Octavia and Lincoln, looking at each other with more love than Bellamy could ever fathom. “Yes.”

“What happens if they don’t kill?”

“They have to in order to survive,” Bellamy sighs. But they don’t have to kill the way Octavia and her father do. Bellamy survived just fine killing injured sailors who fell overboard to put them out of their misery. His survival is proof that they don’t have to lure young, healthy humans to their death.

“No, I mean, if a siren chose not to kill after luring someone into the water, what would happen?” she whispers, her eyes flashing between Bellamy and the door as if she were scared someone could hear her.

His heart threatens to pound itself out of his chest. She’s asking about what happened to him. With a deep breath, Bellamy turns on his side to face her. The way her blue eyes plead with him nearly breaks his heart. Is that part of what the siren song did to her? She cares about her almost killer when she shouldn’t. This must be why the others say her mind is broken. Just like his family calls him broken for not enjoying his kills.

“That would be a weak siren, and sirens turn their backs on the weak,” he confesses. “Most likely, that siren would be shunned or abandoned.” Abandonment would have been more merciful… not that sirens care for mercy.

Clarke jerks upright and buries her face into her sleeve.

“Princess,” he calls out to her, but she doesn’t react. A little wobbly, Bellamy pushes himself up and lets his hand rest on her back. “Clarke, it’s alright.”

“It’s not,” she sobs. When her head pops up, those beautiful eyes of hers are full of tears. Before he can think better of it, Bellamy pulls her toward him. He breathes easier when he feels her relax into him.

She’s warm in his embrace, warm in a way he wouldn’t be able to handle as a siren. But as a human, her warmth melts into his so seamlessly. Bellamy threads his fingers through her golden hair, remembering how it made him feel better when she did it last night. His skin buzzes when he hears her responding hum.

Something drops on his head. When Bellamy looks up, a splash of water lands on his cheek. Oh, rain. He always wondered what rain was like above the surface.

But when the next drop falls, it comes with a voice he never wanted to hear again.

_Good. You found a royal to sacrifice._

Bellamy’s blood turns cold.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few exciting things: 
> 
> 1) The incredible electricalice made [ this gorgeous fanart ](https://electricalice.tumblr.com/post/186447781487/asroarkes-drag-me-down-is-an-amazingly-dark) inspired by Drag Me Down and I cannot stop staring at it. I cannot get over it. It's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.
> 
> 2) [ We've got a playlist now! ](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6O8FLqaFkVf6V2EIcEoufE?si=F8PMPMYIS6SSouzZFkM1WA)
> 
> 3) I finally finished the first draft of the final chapter. I've been restricting my updates to once a week to make sure I could keep to a schedule while I finished this fairytale, and now that I've gotten all the chapters written I can increase the number of updates each week. Expect the next update in a few days instead of next Monday!

ALIE’s words echo in his head, but she can’t seem to hear him when he responds. It takes a week for Bellamy to get the opportunity to sneak out to the shore. Seven days of seeing Clarke’s bright, smiling face and hearing ALIE’s words in the back of his mind. Seven days of panic. Seven days of wondering if ALIE would renegotiate the deal.

On the seventh night, Murphy falls asleep outside Bellamy’s door. That’s when he makes his break toward the ocean. It’s not easy, and he’s almost caught three different times because as hard as he tries, he’s still not great at this walking thing.

But he makes it, and all he has to do is stick his foot into the water before he hears her again.

_Where is she?_

“I can’t sacrifice her,” Bellamy tells ALIE.

 _I asked for one more sacrifice, and you agreed_.

“Yes, but not her. Anyone but her,” he pleads. “She’s just a girl.” A girl who cried for the siren who tried to kill her. A girl who is protecting his sister from siren hunters even though she killed her father. A girl who fears for the “innocent” sirens, if there are any.

_A girl whose people are killing your kind, Bellamy. This is how we fight back._

“Octavia started this when she killed their king and kept taking down their ships. They haven’t done anything wrong,” Bellamy groans.

 _Tell that to Lincoln_. _Bring that princess to me._

A shiver washes through Bellamy. ALIE isn’t wrong. The siren hunters are just as monstrous as the sirens themselves. But Clarke isn’t a hunter.

“You said royal, not Clarke specifically,” Bellamy realizes. “I could bring you someone else.”

There’s a rustling behind him, and when he turns, he sees Murphy sprinting toward him.

_Keep her away from the ocean, then. The next royal to touch the water will be taken as payment._

Bellamy darts out of the water right as Murphy catches up to him.

“What is with you and the Princess and this damn beach?” he growls. “Do you want me to be reassigned again?”

“I was just about to turn back,” Bellamy shrugs, and Murphy stares at him with wide, annoyed eyes. Bellamy starts walking, and Murphy stomps alongside him.

“Let me be clear. Do not run off without me. I’m not dealing with the Princess’ heartbreak if something happens to her new friend because you’re being stupid,” Murphy huffs, wagging his finger as they walk down the beach.

Bellamy laughs, but Murphy is not amused. On one hand, it seems silly to have a guard protecting him. He’s no one here. Just a friend of the Princess. And as a siren, Bellamy was a killer. The idea that something would happen to him while taking an innocent stroll is laughable. But on the other hand, the realization that Clarke is worried enough about him to want someone watching over Bellamy makes him feel warm. It’s been a long time since someone wanted to protect him.

They don’t talk the rest of the way. Murphy is still fuming about Bellamy sneaking out, and Bellamy’s mind drifts back and forth between Octavia and the royal he has to sacrifice.

Octavia had been concerned months ago that she was being hunted… not that it changed her behavior at all. She still takes down ships for fun, knowing full well that she risks being harpooned by a siren hunter. If he thought it would do any good, he would try to warn her. But she won’t listen to him. And why should she? She’s a fierce siren, and he chose to become the thing she hates most in the world. If he warned her, she’d probably hurt him like her father used to. Especially now that he’s a human. He isn’t all that certain she wouldn’t drown him when she sees his new legs.

As for the other royal, he’s at a loss. The only other one he knows is the Queen, and Bellamy can’t do that to Clarke. Frankly, he isn’t sure he’s even capable of killing again even if he did know another royal. His last kill was hard for him even though it was the right thing to do. He isn’t sure he can do it again, not as a human.

But he doesn’t really have a choice. ALIE will take whoever she can, and Bellamy won’t let that be Clarke. No matter what it takes.

“The story is that we went on this stroll together, got it? No telling anyone that you snuck out,” Murphy whispers as they walk up the steps.

“No telling anyone that you fell asleep?” Bellamy teases. Murphy elbows him in the arm. Hard. A few days ago, that would have knocked Bellamy over. But not today. He’s getting pretty good at this whole human thing. There are still some things he doesn’t understand, and he makes occasional slip ups that causes Clarke or Murphy to give him a strange look. But he has been laying low, observing the humans around him to learn how to blend in.

No one actually asks what they were doing. Inside the main foyer, a handful of guards speak with a tall, pale man with inky black hair. He’s dressed well, nicer than most men he’s seen visit the castle, but there’s an odd necklace hanging around his neck. It’s bulky and has a large shell in the center. Bellamy has seen many questionable articles on humans in this castle, but this one seems the most out of place.

“Your Highness,” Murphy says with a bow and a hint of disdain in his voice, and Bellamy frantically mirrors the motion. The man spares them a glance before turning back to Kane. Murphy huffs.

“Your letter said it had stopped,” he says in an annoyed tone.

“It did for almost a week, so we thought it was over. But tonight, she tried to run off to the beach again,” Kane whispers. Bellamy freezes, and Murphy lets out an irritated huff. They’re talking about Clarke.

“So, it’s not dead yet,” the man groans as he runs a hand through his dark hair. “I need more guards watching her. All this work will be for nothing if she gets herself killed by that thing.”

“There are plenty watching her. And need I remind you that I don’t take orders from you?” Kane snaps. “This isn’t your kingdom.”

“Not yet,” the man grins. Then, his head turns, and his eyes find Bellamy and Murphy. “Did you two need something?” he hisses.

“Apologies, Prince Cage,” Murphy says while stepping forward. So, this is the Cage that Clarke is worried about. She didn’t mention he was a prince. Maybe this could be the royal he’s looking for. ALIE would get her sacrifice, he wouldn’t be able to kill Bellamy’s sister, and Clarke wouldn’t have to marry him. His death would solve all his problems at once if he could manage it. “We just overheard that the Princess tried to sneak out again and were concerned for her safety, is all.”

“She’s alright. Just annoyed,” Kane replies with a reassuring smile.

Before Bellamy can say anything, Murphy pulls him by the elbow. As soon as they’re out of earshot, Bellamy asks, “So, that man is a prince?”

“Prince Cage, and if you know what’s good for you, you’ll stay away from him.” Murphy shakes his head. “I’ve heard stories that’ll make anything McCreary said sound like child’s play.”

“What is he doing here? He’s not an Arkadian Prince, right?”

“Right. He’s from Mt. Weather. And he’s probably here to recruit more men for his next siren excursion. Guess it’s hard to keep a crew when they keep getting lured into the water.” Murphy says it like it’s a joke, but Bellamy doesn’t laugh.

“Why are you joking about innocent men dying?”

“They aren’t innocent,” Murphy spats, and Bellamy flinches. “You want to know why Cage is so much better at hunting sirens than the others? He doesn’t kill them right away.”

“I don’t understand.”

Murphy tugs him into his bedroom and closes the door. “He calls them experiments. He wants to know what makes the sirens tick,” he whispers. “Keeps them aboard his ship for days before killing them so he can test his theories. Once, he even dangled one off his ship as bait so he could catch the siren that came to rescue their friend.”

Bellamy’s eyes slam shut. Sterling and Mel.

“Any man who joins his crew knows exactly what they’re doing. So, if the sirens get them, good riddance.”

Before Bellamy can say anything else, Murphy steps out and slams the door shut behind him. He had no idea Murphy had opinions on sirens and siren hunters. He seems so indifferent towards most things that this catches Bellamy off guard.

Bellamy has a hard time falling asleep that night. His dreams are full of dark oceans and ruthless sirens. They aren’t nightmares, but they aren’t exactly pleasant either. The dreams just feel heavy, and he only awakens after hearing Octavia say, “You were given a second chance and you still can’t bring yourself to kill her.” He jerks upright in his bed, relieved to see light filtering into his room instead of the dark waters of Polis.

He rushes to get dressed, a little too eager to see with his own eyes that Clarke is alive and well. It’s irrational, he knows. Clarke won’t feel the pull toward the ocean as long as Bellamy stays put, but he can’t shake the visual of her stepping into the water and being pulled down by ALIE. No siren there to numb the pain with a song. Just a cold, merciless drowning.

In the dining room, he expects to see dozens of people crowding the table. But there is only one person there: Prince Cage. Not even Clarke and her mother have made an appearance yet.

“Your Highness,” Bellamy remembers to say before taking his seat. The Prince is still wearing that gaudy, shell medallion around his neck.

Cage looks amused as he looks up from his cup mid sip. After swallowing, he asks, “You’re the one that drowned, correct?”

“Yes. Bellamy,” he sighs. Cage’s eyes narrow at him. They’re piercing… a lot like his step father’s were.

“Have we met? You look familiar.” Bellamy is certain he’s never crossed paths with a siren hunter before, but his sister has. Cage probably recognizes Octavia in him.

Bellamy lets out a breath when he hears footsteps coming closer. Cage jumps to his feet, and Bellamy frantically mirrors the movement. He still doesn’t have a handle on all these unspoken rules yet. When he looks over his shoulder, Clarke is sliding into the chair beside him.

“Will Her Majesty be gracing us with her presence?” Cage smirks, cocking his head to the side.

“She’s feeling unwell,” Clarke replies as the two of them take their seats. Where is everyone else? Normally, everyone is clamoring for the opportunity to talk to either Clarke or her mother over a meal.

“Unwell or does she just not wish to see me this visit?” Bellamy glances around the empty room. Did no one come because of Cage?

“Do you truly want an answer to that?” Clarke replies before turning to face Bellamy. “How are you this morning?” she asks with the gentle smile that always puts his heart at ease.

Before Bellamy can answer, Cage says, “I have good news for her, though. While I haven’t found Blodreina again, I did make a breakthrough on your condition.”

Her jaw tenses, and ever so slowly, she leaves Bellamy’s gaze and fixes her eyes across the table.

“My condition?” she huffs. “I don’t want to hear whatever this is.”

“Oh, I think you do. You see, I saved one of my men after they heard the siren’s song,” Cage says proudly right as the servants bring out the first dish. Bellamy fixes his eyes on his plate so he doesn’t give himself away. “All he wanted to do was jump back into the water, just like you did.”

He doesn’t look up, but he can feel everyone in the room freeze, even Clarke.

“So, I did a little experiment.” Clarke’s posture goes rigid. “Once I caught it, Emerson couldn’t stay away from the cage I put it in. It kept pulling him in even though it wasn’t singing anymore.”

Murphy didn’t say he keeps sirens in cages. A wave of nausea washes through him. While Bellamy fears siren hunters, he’s always been able to rationalize what they do. It’s not that different than what sirens do. They hunt and they kill. It’s a fair war. But what Prince Cage is doing is a step too far, sort of like how Octavia’s friend Kara likes to play with her prey before killing them. 

“You’re a real monster, you know that?” Clarke hisses.

“I’m doing what I have to so that we can learn about them,” Cage corrects. His eyes are sincere. He really believes he’s doing this for the greater good… just like Octavia does when she talks about wiping out humans.

Bellamy wants to kill him.

That realization makes him feel sick, and he nudges his plate away. Bellamy has never _wanted_ to kill anyone. There has never been a desire within him to take a life. As he glares at the monster across the table, he feels an odd connection to his sister. Most days, Bellamy struggles to hold onto whatever bonds he has left to her. It’s hard to when Bellamy is everything a siren is not. But this feeling of murderous anger must be how Octavia feels now that Lincoln is gone. This horrible weight must be on her all the time. Bellamy isn’t sure how she lives with it.

“Don’t you want to know what I learned this time?” Cage asks as he plays with the utensils.

“No, I don’t,” Clarke snaps.

“The madness stopped as soon as I killed the siren,” Cage says anyway. “The siren’s song was lifted from Emerson. No more being pulled in by the siren. And this is how I’ll fix you, Princess.”

A chill washes through Bellamy as Cage’s words sink in. He wants to kill Clarke’s siren so that she’ll stop being pulled toward the ocean. At least Cage doesn’t know the siren is human now. He’ll never succeed, but the intent is horrifying all the same.

Bellamy is going to make him the sacrifice. No further deliberation needed. He’ll keep Clarke far from the water until he gets the chance to offer Cage to ALIE as Clarke’s substitute.

“There is nothing wrong with me,” Clarke whispers. There’s something in her voice that drowns out all his anger and fills him with a chilling sadness. It’s like she’s willing herself to believe it as she speaks.

“Your mind is still broken, Clarke,” Cage smirks.

 _Your heart is broken, Bell_. His sister’s voice echoes in his mind. _Weak like a human’s._

But it’s not broken. He sees things that Octavia could never let herself see. Bellamy knows not all humans are monsters. Just like Clarke knows not all sirens are either.

Clarke keeps her face stoic, but Bellamy can see her hand shaking beneath the table. He reaches over to hold it. She lets him, yet her gaze stays on Cage.

All these years, Bellamy has been considered tainted by what happened with Clarke in the water. Broken. Defective. And all these years, Clarke has been too. He can hear the condescension in Cage’s voice. He thinks she’s broken. Her own mother fears it too. An entire kingdom whispers of the Princess and the madness she got from the siren. They all treat her like she’s broken… like she needs to be fixed.

But she’s not. He knows she’s not broken. She’s like him. There is finally someone else on this earth who is like him. He isn’t alone.

“You will thank me when it’s done.”

“Your only objective from the Queen is to find the siren that killed my father. No others. Is that understood?” Clarke snaps. Cage laughs in response.

“How quick you are to protect the beast that tried to kill you,” Cage snickers. “It’s all a trick your mind is playing on you, Clarke. There was no boy in that water.”

“Yes, there was!” Her shout echoes off the walls, making the oxygen in the room feel scarce.

“See? This right here is why I have to kill that siren of yours.”

Clarke jumps to her feet, and Bellamy barely gets himself up in time to pull Clarke back as she lunges across the table. She’s stronger than she looks, and a guard has to help Bellamy get her away from the table.

Cage has backed up into the wall, staring at Clarke in confusion but also with a dash of fear. He catches Bellamy staring and quickly fixes his expression. “My point has been proven, I see,” he mutters as he straightens up his clothes. Then, he gives the shell on his necklace a small pat. “I am no longer hungry. I will see you both this evening. Lovely to meet you, Bellamy.”

Bellamy doesn’t loosen his grip on Clarke until the door shuts behind Cage.

She braces her hands on the table. Her breathing is shaky. Behind them, two guards are whispering. There’s no mistaking who they are whispering about.

Bellamy rests his hand over Clarke’s. “I believe you,” he whispers.

Her eyes flicker up to his, wide and on the verge of tears. She murmurs, “You do?” The disbelief in her voice confirms what he suspected. No one has ever believed her about what happened below the surface. Bellamy is the first.

“I do.”


	6. Chapter 6

“You don’t even know what—” Clarke’s eyes dart to the guards, and she shuts her mouth.

“You could tell me.”

“We’ll go for a walk after breakfast,” Clarke cuts him off.

Bellamy turns back to his plate, trying to mask his crestfallen face. It’s not personal, he knows now. It’s not that she doesn’t want to tell him. Clarke just doesn’t want to tell him here with so many ears listening in.

Clarke is never alone. Someone is always watching her and listening to everything she says. And after seeing that fight between her and Cage, Bellamy understands why: they think she’s broken. Of course, Clarke would modify what she says in front of the guards. In fact, the only times he recalls her letting her guard down is when the two of them have been alone.

That’s what the walk is for. They’ll be alone, and she’ll finally talk to him about what has been eating away at him ever since she saved his life.

Breakfast goes by at an agonizingly slow pace. Minutes feel like hours as he buzzes in anticipation. But eventually, they both rise to their feet, Clarke tells Monty that she’s going on a walk, and they head outside.

Her arm links with his, her hand resting on his bicep as they walk into the garden. It’s a beautiful day. Warm and sunny. Bellamy hasn’t been outside much with the exception of his trip to the beach, and that was in the dead of night. This might be the first time Bellamy’s experienced the warmth of the sun as a human. It’s wonderful.

“You have freckles,” Clarke says, and he turns his head to see her staring up at him. “Didn’t notice that before.” He waits for a teasing remark, but it doesn’t come. “I only get them on my arms.” She sounds disappointed by that, which confuses Bellamy.

“Do you like freckles?” he asks.

Clarke tilts her head as if to think about it. “Never put much thought to it before,” she explains, but then her eyes flicker back up to him. He holds his breath as her gaze drifts across his cheeks. “I suppose I do.”

Heat floods his cheeks, and he has to turn away. Out of the corner of his eye, he spots a handful of guards watching them from just outside the door. He sees Monty, but Murphy isn’t among them.

“Where did Murphy go?” As annoying as he sometimes is, Bellamy has come to think of him as a friend. He’s a better friend than he ever had in the ocean, anyway.

“We try to keep him away when Cage is here,” Clarke sighs.

“Why?”

“There’s this girl he’s a bit in love with,” she explains, which in of itself sounds wildly out of character for the surly guard. Bellamy gets the impression that Murphy only cares about himself. “Emori. She takes jobs on various ships, and once she took one on Cage’s. That was back when he used crew members as bait. She came home safe and sound, but I know Murphy would kill Cage if given the chance.”

Bellamy swallows hard. He would too. He will. Just has to figure out how.

Clarke lets go of his arm and approaches a bed of flowers. “Do you still want to know what happened?” she whispers, not looking up at him. “It’s alright if you don’t, or if you don’t believe—”

“You can tell me.” She bites down on her lip and glances around.

“I was six,” she starts. “My mother and I were sailing out to visit another kingdom. I don’t remember which one, not that it matters. We never made it. It was supposed to be the first of many trips for me, but now I’ll probably never be allowed out of Arkadia.” Her fingers trail over a pink flower petal. “Other people heard the song, but from what I’ve been told, I was the only one affected by it.”

If Bellamy had been a full grown siren at the time, more of them would have fallen into the trance. But he had been unsure of what he was doing. His song was quiet and weak, barely strong enough to take the little girl who was already looking out into the water giggling excitedly when she saw a fish. Clarke was an easy target.

“It was so hot up on the ship, and my mother had dressed me in this heavy dress with all sorts of jewels stitched into it,” she mutters, shaking her head. Bellamy can still see it glittering in the water. “And the cold water looked so tempting all the sudden. I jumped, and it felt like such a relief to be out of the sun. But that was all the siren’s song doing, of course.”

Bellamy nods along, following Clarke as she makes her way to a different bed. His eyes remain glued to her pale hand as she traces flower petals so gently. As gently as she touched his cheek while she drowned.

“The siren wasn’t what you grow up imagining,” she sighs. “He looked about my age, maybe a little older. But he was just a boy, Bellamy.” He clenches his eyes shut. “And he looked so scared.”

Bellamy was scared. Terrified. Some parents help their kids during their first kill. His mother wanted to help him, but she wouldn’t defy her husband who said only weak sirens need help killing. And when Bellamy begged for someone to come with him, he was beaten for it. Bellamy had been shaking with fear as he started singing, terrified of killing and terrified of failing. But most of all, he was terrified of being alone. Still is.

“I was drowning. I knew that I was drowning. But the only thing that upset me was that he looked like he had been hurt.” Bellamy’s head snaps up and his eyes widen. Her eyes stay on the flowers, completely missing his dumbfounded expression. “There was this bruise on his face. Another on his arm. Maybe more, but my memory is a bit fuzzy. Something hurt him. Or someone. I don’t know. I just know he needed help.”

Something prickles behind his eyes, something warm and heavy. When he reaches up to touch his face, it’s wet. Is he crying? No, he can’t be. Sirens can’t cry.

It takes him longer than normal to remember he isn’t a siren anymore. He’s human, and humans can cry.

“I didn’t want to leave him. But he made me. He brought me back to the surface instead of killing me and then disappeared. And I tried to get back to him, but no one would let me near the water after that. My mother told me it was a trick. That there was no boy in the water. It was just the siren’s song trying to lure me back into the sea. But I know what I saw, Bellamy.”

She saw him. She really saw him. It’s not just a fleeting memory of a faceless siren. It’s him. The scared child who didn’t want to be a killer.

Clarke had been underwater for maybe two minutes. And in that brief time, she was able to see him in a way no one else ever has. Not as a weak siren, but as someone who needed help. He was scared and alone, and despite what he did to Clarke that day, she wanted to help him. And still does, it seems.

“I know the siren’s song keeps pulling me to the water. I can feel it. But that wasn’t part of it,” she murmurs, shaking her head. “I didn’t want to leave him all alone. Even without you telling me that sirens shun the weak, I knew letting me live would be bad for him.” After a deep breath, she finally looks up at him. “You think I’ve gone mad, don’t you?”

“Not at all,” he whispers, and her eyes narrow. He holds his breath as she scrutinizes his face. For a moment, it’s as if she finally recognizes him. But she shakes her head and looks down at the ground.

Bellamy doesn’t stop himself from reaching out to her and taking her small hand in his. Her eyes flicker up to him, wide and confused at first, and then softening. The blue in them is so much brighter out in the sunlight, much like how her curls practically shine out here.

“I’m going to stop him,” she says. “I can’t let him…”

Bellamy isn’t sure where she intended to go with that sentence before she trailed off. His first guess is that she can’t let him kill Blodreina and become her husband, but that wasn’t what her outburst earlier was about. No, her anger came when Cage threatened her siren.

He has to tell her the truth, he realizes. Clarke needs to know that the siren she met as a child is okay. He can trust her with this. There’s something about the way she speaks of the siren she remembers that tells him she could never hate him. She speaks of the siren like he’s an old friend she misses, not the monster who almost killed her.

“I need to confess something,” he says before swallowing. “I, uh, I lied before when I said I didn’t remember what happened.”

“I know.”

Bellamy blinks a few times. “You know?”

A smile forms on her lips. “You’re a terrible liar,” she says with a laugh.

“If you knew I was lying, why would you—”

“I knew you would tell me eventually,” she shrugs. “People don’t always trust you with the truth when they’re scared.” Bellamy ducks his head. Even now, she sees him better than anyone else. “What are you running from?”

There’s no easy answer to that question. He’s running from his sister, from the other sirens, from the bloodlust that seems to be infecting his kind, from the cold sea, and from being a killer. But he didn’t mean to run away. That wasn’t what he was doing when he took the deal. He was running toward something. A place where he wouldn’t be considered weak or somewhere warm, he isn’t quite sure.

Maybe he was running to her without even realizing it. After all, hasn’t he always been pulled toward the shore just as she has been pulled to the water? For twelve years, he’s been haunted by the golden hair flowing wildly in the water and the bright eyes that held more gentleness than anything he’s seen in the sea. There is no siren song pulling him in. No, it’s something far more consuming. It’s her. She’s pulling him in.

Right as he opens his mouth, the door swings open and a guard sprints toward the others. Clarke drops his hand and stares in that direction with panicked eyes.

There’s a loud gasp among the guards, and when he looks back at Clarke, her jaw is tense.

“What is it?” he asks.

“Another ship,” is all she chokes out before she takes off running back to the castle. Bellamy follows after her.

The other guards slip back inside, but Monty waits for them. “McCreary’s ship,” he tells them, and Bellamy lets out a sigh of relief. One less siren hunter to worry about.

Clarke’s jaw sets and she storms inside. Monty and Bellamy frantically chase after her.

Inside, it’s chaos. Everyone is rushing toward the throne room, but not Clarke. She storms to the staircase where none other than Prince Cage is standing, watching the chaos with a small grin.

He sees Clarke approaching and leisurely makes his way down the steps. “Those sirens are becoming quite a problem, aren’t they?” he asks.

“How?” Clarke growls. “What did you do?”

“Me?” he scoffs. “It seemed the little leads McCreary kept getting weren’t very helpful. It was as if someone bribed those fishermen to send all us hunters on a wild goose chase.” So, he knows what Clarke has been doing. Of course, he does. “So, I gave him some help. You know, hunter to hunter.”

“Where did you send him?” Bellamy asks.

Cage gives him a confused look, as if he is only now noticing Bellamy is here. But then, his eyes go back to Clarke. It’s as if he enjoys tormenting her, just as he enjoys torturing sirens. “Princess, tell me, have you ever heard of a place called Polis?”

Bellamy’s stomach drops. How does Cage know where Polis is? Did he rip that information from the sirens he has tortured?

“No.”

If McCreary was sent to Polis, it would be a massacre. Hundreds of sirens would be ready. Even if he managed to kill a few, the sirens of Wonkru wouldn’t let a single person on that ship survive.

“It’s the home of the sirens,” he grins. “And McCreary was so very excited to find out where it was that he must not have heeded my warning about how sailing there is a suicide mission.”

Clarke lunges toward him, and this time Monty pulls her back. That means there is no one to stop Bellamy when he shoves Cage to the wall.

“How could you?” he growls, and Cage doesn’t even seem startled. No, he looks amused.

Hands pull at his waist, hands he’s felt before. “Bellamy, don’t,” Clarke murmurs, and he lets her pull him back for now. But he is going to kill Cage. Whatever it takes, it will be him that gets sacrificed to ALIE. For once, a cold, merciless death seems right.

“Had to thin out the competition somehow,” Cage snickers before walking past them to join the crowd flooding into the throne room.


	7. Chapter 7

Chaos reigns in the throne room until Queen Abigail silences the worried crowd. As she relays that McCreary’s ship had been taken down with no survivors, Murphy appears at Bellamy’s side.

“Prince Cage lured him there,” Bellamy whispers. Murphy’s expression is unreadable except for a small twitch of his lips. “Said he was thinning out the competition.”

Bellamy glances over at Clarke who, instead of standing beside her mother, is in the corner whispering with Kane and Monty. Her impending marriage to whichever siren hunter kills Octavia has been easy enough to push from his thoughts until now because a few days ago, she seemed to have a handle on the situation. From what Monty and Murphy have confirmed, Clarke has sent every other siren hunter to empty waters. If the hunters found a siren, it was by pure luck. This has been going on for the better part of a year. She might be powerless to change her mother’s order, but Clarke figured out a way to keep both the sirens and siren hunters from killing each other. She found a way to keep what little peace there could ever be in the ocean.

She might be the only reason no one has killed his sister yet.

But now, he sees Cage lurking about the castle. Even now, his eyes are fixed on the throne as if imagining himself up there. He wants it. He wants to be a king, and he would send other humans to their deaths to become one. Bellamy has known many monsters in his life, but none of them would kill off their own like that.

And this monster, if he succeeds, will take Clarke next. Bellamy has no delusions that he would be good to her. He won’t be. Monsters are incapable of that, a lesson Bellamy learned from his step-father. His mother wasn’t loved; she was controlled. And Bellamy’s new human heart burns at the thought of that happening to Clarke.

“His ship sets out in the morning. I’m not sure where to, but his scouts came in earlier looking pretty sure of themselves,” Murphy whispers back. He must have an idea of where Octavia is. Bellamy wonders if Cage has figured out yet that Octavia likes lingering near her sunken ships since they’re like trophies to her. He hopes not. She would be an easy target if anyone knew that.

Bellamy will have to sacrifice him before he sets sail tomorrow to save her and Clarke.

The Queen deals with the people’s concerns with grace. It’s amazing to behold, frankly. He has no idea how anyone could keep such composure while discussing a massacre at sea.

Bellamy’s eyes flicker between Cage and Clarke. Cage seems to have noticed Clarke whispering with the others, but he seems more amused than suspicious. That only makes Bellamy seethe more.

Though no one is truly appeased by what the Queen says, they are all dismissed. Guards begin escorting people out, but Clarke stays firmly planted, refusing to move. Bellamy tries to cross over to her, but Murphy pulls him by the arm in the opposite direction.

“She’s upset,” Bellamy huffs.

“And you don’t want to be in the room when she screams at her mother,” Murphy mutters. He isn’t taking Bellamy the same direction as everyone else. In fact, the two of them head toward a vacant, dark hallway Bellamy hasn’t seen before. “Servant hallway,” Murphy whispers.

Bellamy is about to speak when he hears Clarke say, “Cage sent those men to die.”

“Can you prove that?” her mother asks. It takes Bellamy a beat to realize they are right behind the throne room. He’s about to say something when Murphy slaps a hand over his mouth and places a finger over his own.

“It doesn’t matter. You need to cancel the bounty.”

“Clarke, I know that you aren’t fond of—”

“You cannot want him to be the next king,” Clarke yells. Bellamy has never heard her like this. She’s angry like she was with Cage earlier but more desperate. “Our people will not be safe with him. He just sent a ship full of men to their deaths because he wants a crown. What will he do when he decides Arkadia isn’t big enough and wants to invade our allies?”

“I don’t approve of his methods, but what am I supposed to do? Let your father go unavenged?” The Queen suddenly makes more sense to him. She’s in mourning. Just like Octavia. The hunters flocking to the ocean are her attempt at avenging the man she loved.

“Yes!” Clarke screams.

“Your father wouldn’t want—”

“My father wanted us to forgive. I nearly died, and when our people wanted revenge for that, he told them that forgiveness is the only way. And what are you doing to honor him? Selling your daughter off to a ruthless murderer in exchange for Blodreina’s head? Do you think that will finally bring us peace? Is that what it will take for you to sleep at night? If he were still alive, would you be able to look him in the eye?”

“Clarke!”

Stomps echo through the walls. Bellamy’s eyes flicker over to Murphy. Does he always listen in on these conversations? Surely, that cannot be allowed. But Bellamy can’t imagine Murphy cares.

Clarke groans, “Let me leave.”

“Clarke,” Queen Abigail says, quieter this time. “Your father was a great man, but he isn’t here anymore. They took him from us.”

“One siren took him from us,” Clarke corrects. “And you’re sending Cage, who would kill all of them if given the chance, to kill her. That’s war.”

“That’s justice.”

The silence that follows rings out louder than any scream ever has. Bellamy doesn’t realize he’s holding his breath until Murphy pulls him away.

“I’m going to stop him,” Clarke says, and it’s the last thing he hears from them before Murphy and Bellamy turn the corner.

Unfortunately, there’s nothing left for Clarke to do. But there is something Bellamy can do.

He waits until Murphy brings him back to his room to ask, “Do you think I could get onto his ship?”

Murphy slams the door and stares at Bellamy with wide eyes. “To do what?”

“To kill him.” Murphy opens the door enough to stick his head out and then pulls it shut again.

“You can’t just say things like that,” Murphy whispers. “He’s a prince. I’m supposed to arrest people who makes threats like that.”

“Are you going to arrest me?” Bellamy asks.

He stares at Bellamy, blinking slowly. “No,” he whispers. “Are you really going to kill him?” Bellamy nods. “For the Princess?” He nods again, though it’s not entirely truthful. Bellamy isn’t sure if Murphy would believe him if he heard all the reasons Bellamy has to kill Cage.

“You don’t have to do anything. Just look the other way when I slip out tomorrow morning,” Bellamy explains.

Murphy’s jaw clenches as he looks down at the ground. With a small shake of his head, he says, “I’ll get you onto the ship.”

“What?”

“You won’t get onboard all on your own without drawing suspicion. Without me, you’ll get caught. You’re like a fish out of water here.”

“No, I’m not!”

With an eye roll, Murphy mutters, “This right here is what I’m talking about.” It seems that this is another one of those times where Bellamy is just misunderstanding Murphy. He doesn’t seem to be throwing accusations around. Why does he say so many things he doesn’t actually mean? “I’ll get you in with Emerson saying you need a job or something. But once you’re on the ship, you’re on your own, got it?”

“Got it.”

Murphy gives him a lingering glance before walking toward the door. “Watch out for the sirens,” he whispers before opening the door. “If Cage doesn’t kill you, they will.”

When the door slams shut, Bellamy shudders. He can’t let the ship leave the harbor. If he is on the ship and sirens attack, he might be as helpless as the other humans. The siren’s song doesn’t work on other sirens, but Bellamy is a human now.

He paces in front of his bed, thinking the plan through. All he has to do is get Cage into the water. ALIE said she would take the first one to touch the water, so he technically doesn’t have to do the killing. Bellamy could just push him overboard and ALIE would take him under.

But then, the other humans might kill Bellamy for it. They’re loyal to Cage. No, it has to look like an accident. Or Bellamy could fall in too. He isn’t a good swimmer now that he’s human, but he could stay alive long enough for someone to save him. Men will jump in the water for Cage just like they did for Clarke, anyway.

He’s about settled on his plan when there is a knock at the door. “Yes?” he calls out, and Clarke pushes open the door. Her brows are furrowed and she’s wringing her hands as she steps inside. Does she know what he is planning somehow? Did Murphy tell her? “Is something wrong?”

She shakes her head. Clarke opens her mouth to speak, but for some reason, words don’t come out. Bellamy crosses over to her and grabs her hands.

“It’s about the ship, right?” he asks. Weakly, she nods. “He won’t get away with this.”

“I know he won’t,” she sighs. Her confidence confuses him, but he’s relieved that she doesn’t feel hopeless. “I have a question.” Bellamy swallows. “Do you recognize the necklace Prince Cage is always wearing?”

“No. Never seen anything like it before,” he shrugs. Though it’s odd that Clarke notices it too.

She sighs again and breaks away toward his open window. “He never takes it off,” Clarke explains. “It’s not an heirloom, and it’s not worth much. Yet it’s important enough that he almost always has it on him and once turned his ship around so he could come back here to retrieve it.”

Looking out the window, Bellamy can see Cage’s ship out in the harbor. It looks just like the one his sister took down on his last day as a siren. Is he really going to step onto a siren hunter’s ship tomorrow?

“He doesn’t care about anything but himself. Why would he be so attached to a necklace?” she says, shaking her head.

“Perhaps he thinks it’s good luck,” Bellamy shrugs.

Clarke opens her mouth to argue and promptly snaps it shut. After a beat, she says, “I have to go.”

 “Wait,” he pleads, grabbing her wrist before she gets too far. Her eyes flash up to him, wide and confused, but he doesn’t know what to say. He can’t tell her what he’s planning to do, not without endangering her. Clarke can’t know about the fate Bellamy has planned for Cage.

What else can he tell her? He almost told her earlier who he is, but now he wonders if it would be better for her if she never knew the truth. The siren who spared her is on such a high pedestal, a far cry from the murderer Bellamy is about to be. She could live on thinking her siren truly is innocent, holding onto that memory of him like Bellamy has held onto his memory of her.

“Everything is going to be okay,” she whispers. And he knows that. He’s going to make sure of it. Cage will die tomorrow. Octavia will be safe. Clarke will be free of him. Bellamy will stay human.

Despite his efforts to force a smile, Clarke seems to sense something is wrong. Her hands take his. She takes a step towards him, getting close like she was the night she saved him. Bellamy should do something. Hold her or talk to her. Give her something that tells her how much she means to him. How much she has always meant to him.

But he remains frozen. The girl he dreamed of for years, who was his only reprieve from unbearable loneliness, who showed him love and kindness when his family failed to, stands right in front of him and he can’t even speak. He can’t form the words to thank her.

Clarke takes another step towards him, her chest now grazing his as she stands up on her toes. One hand leaves his, and he watches, hypnotized, as she brings it to his cheek. The touch is warm and soothing, like everything with her.

He loves her, he realizes. Like Octavia loves Lincoln or the Queen loves the King. The kind of love that drives Octavia to take down ships and the Queen to send out hunters. He would do anything for her.

Bellamy stands motionless, trying to wrap his head around how that happened, when Clarke presses her lips to his cheek. His heart stutters and his eyes fall shut. She’s kissing him. He hasn’t been kissed since he was a small child, before he proved to be a defective siren.

It’s over too quickly. She pulls away just as he registers it’s a kiss, and his hand flies to where her lips were, as if holding onto the kiss before it slips away.

Clarke’s cheeks are flushed pink as she pulls away, a lovely shade that reminds him of the flowers out in the garden. Her hand slips out of his, and the other leaves his cheek. She blinks a few times before her bright eyes meet his.

“It’s been a long day. You should get some rest,” she whispers before ducking her head. He swallows as she makes her way back to his door. How is he supposed to leave her tomorrow not knowing if he will ever see her again?

She gives him one last glance, her eyes drifting over him as if studying him. For a second, she appears as if she wants to say something else, but she quickly snaps her head away and gives it a small shake as her hand wraps around the doorknob.

A tear streams down his cheek as soon as the door shuts behind her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next update will be Thursday. I literally cannot wait for you guys to read chapters eight and nine.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Normally, I'd post the next update on Monday. But I'm going to be super busy, so I'll post it on Sunday/my birthday instead.

Murphy checks that Clarke is asleep in her room before the two of them leave the castle. Three guards stand outside her room, so by the time Bellamy gets to the ship and Clarke begins to feel the pull of the siren song, they will keep her from the water. That should keep her safe long enough for Bellamy to make the sacrifice.

“Are you going to tell her what you did when you get back?” Murphy asks.

“Who?”

“The Princess.”

Bellamy shrugs. He can’t think about that right now. All he can focus on is getting on the ship, getting Cage into the water before they get too deep, and staying alive. Thinking about Clarke is a distraction he can’t afford.

“You’re certain she was in her room?” Bellamy asks again, and Murphy lets out a loud groan.

“Saw her blonde hair poking out of the covers and everything,” he huffs. “Worried she’ll see you onboard a siren ship and start to hate you?” That’s not even close to what he’s worrying about, but now it’s added to the list right after his fear that Clarke will be pulled by him and touch the water before Cage does.

The two of them freeze as the ship comes into view. It looks so different than it does beneath the surface. The size of the ships terrified him as a siren, but looking at them now, Bellamy wonders if he was ever scared enough.

“You don’t have to do this, you know,” Murphy whispers.

“Do you want him to become your next king?” Bellamy snaps. “It has to be done.”

When he takes another step forward, Murphy grabs his arm. “Don’t die,” he whispers. “And make sure his death hurts.”

After a deep breath, Bellamy breaks away from Murphy and makes his way to the ship. He doesn’t let himself look back until he’s onboard. Murphy is still standing where Bellamy left him and gives a small wave. Bellamy mimics the gesture before turning back to survey the ship. He makes note of the lifeboats, two toward the front and two toward the back, just in case.

Cage is talking with a few members of his crew in the center of the ship, and Bellamy’s eyes catch on his necklace again. He wonders if there is something to what Clarke was saying last night, but he can’t fathom why a prince who could have anything he wants is so desperate to cling to a seashell on a string.

He isn’t close enough to the water for Bellamy to reasonably knock him over by “accident” so Bellamy winds up some rope, pretending to be busy, as he waits for Cage to get into a better position. But as sailor after sailor climbs aboard the ship, Bellamy begins to panic that he may not get his chance to knock him overboard before the ship takes off.

A man approaches Bellamy, one with lighter hair and a walk that jangles from the keys on his belt. He looks how Murphy described Emerson. “Drop this below deck,” he mutters, flinging a massive crate into Bellamy’s arms.

It’s an unwieldy thing, but not so heavy that Bellamy can’t manage it on his own. He follows Emerson’s pointed finger down some steps. His plan is to just drop it and sprint back up so he doesn’t miss an opportunity to take out the Prince, but he freezes as soon as he sees the cage.

Bellamy had been warned about it, even thought about it as he walked to the ship this morning. He knew he was going to see the contraption that the Prince trapped sirens in.

He just had no clue a siren would be in it. Certainly not one he knows.

“Niylah,” he whispers, and a low croak falls off her lips. One of her blue fins juts out of the silver cage, like it’s stuck that way. Her blonde hair is dry as it spreads across the metal ground of the cage. “Niylah, it’s me.”

He reaches through the bars and pushes her hair out of her face so she can see him. She’s too dry. Who knows how much longer she’ll last if she doesn’t get back in the water?

Her eyes widen as she takes him in. “You… you,” she chokes out before coughing. There’s anger in her eyes, and it takes him a second to realize why. He’s human. That’s the biggest betrayal to his kind he could ever commit. “Octavia will—” She doesn’t have to finish for him to know what she is saying. Octavia will kill him for this.

“I’m trying to save her,” he hisses. Though Cage’s sudden breakthrough on finding Octavia makes sense. His men tortured it out of Niylah. He prays for her sake that Octavia never finds out. “I’m saving you too.”

He pulls on the cage, but it won’t budge. Bellamy studies it frantically and finally spots a lock on it. He needs a key. Emerson probably has it.

“I’ll be back,” he whispers. Just as he gets to the stairs, he feels the floor shift. His feet sprint up the last steps, and he stares in horror as the castle grows smaller in the distance. The ship has already begun moving. Bellamy didn’t manage to kill Cage in the harbor.

It’s okay, he reminds himself. It will be a while before they get close to Octavia. He’ll save Niylah first, then kill Cage.

On deck, he searches for Emerson. But there are so many moving bodies, and Bellamy feels wobbly with each step. A passing sailor says he hasn’t gotten his sea legs yet. Bellamy fights not to laugh at the irony. When he first locates Emerson, Bellamy stumbles and loses him. He slips below deck before Bellamy can make his move. It takes a while to get to him again.

He finally finds him by the mast, looking out over the ocean. Bellamy spares a glance out into the water, though he has no concept of where in the ocean he is. If he just ducked his head below the surface, he would know instantly. But as a human, he’s clueless.

“You need somethin’?” Emerson hisses. When he takes a step toward Bellamy, the jangling sound is missing. His eyes flicker down to the man’s belt. The keys are gone.

“No,” Bellamy mumbles before turning around. Where could the keys have gone? Surely, no one could have been mad enough to try and take them. Well, no one but Bellamy.

Something shifts among the crew. Their eyes are all fixed on the water, looking for something.

Looking for sirens. They must be getting close.

Bellamy has to get Niylah out now. She can warn Octavia and the others to stay away from this ship, and no one will get hurt today. No one but Cage. He finds himself half jogging across the ship, his eyes scanning each of the men for the missing set of keys.

There’s a loud splash in the water, too loud to be a dolphin jumping or a wave crashing. It’s the kind of splash Bellamy is very used to hearing. Someone just went overboard. But there was no siren song before the splash, so why would someone willingly jump overboard?

“It escaped!” a man screams at the top of his lungs. In an instant, the entirety of the crew rushes to the other side of the ship, each cursing about the siren. Harpoons and nets are pulled out and Cage starts barking off orders.

How did Niylah get out? Did Bellamy somehow loosen the cage? No, there’s no way. It needed a key. A key that went missing. Someone did take it.

Before he can stop himself, Bellamy finds himself rushing below deck again to search for the culprit. Maybe he could find an ally in whoever was brave enough to take the keys from the first mate and release a siren. Perhaps whoever he is could help Bellamy get Cage into the water.

He turns the corner right into the dark room that held the cage and finds himself colliding with Niylah’s rescuer. Hands find his sides before he falls over, but he nearly falls over anyway when he locks eyes with Clarke.

Bellamy takes her face between his shaking hands, as if making sure it really is her. But it is. This is no illusion or trick of the light. Clarke isn’t safe back at the castle. She’s in the middle of the ocean where ALIE is just waiting to take her under.

No. No, no, no. He grips her face harder, praying that his eyes are playing a trick on him. But it’s no trick.

Did she stow away? Murphy checked this morning and said he saw her blonde hair poking out of her blankets. Then again, Clarke is something of an expert at sneaking out. That could have been Harper for all Bellamy knew. Clarke could have been long gone by then, possibly leaving last night after kissed him.

Suddenly, the shift in her behavior last night makes more sense. Clarke was leaving. That was supposed to be a goodbye.  

“What are you doing here?” they ask each other at the same time. When he looks down, he sees the keys in her hands. Bellamy snatches them and throws them over by the cage. Beside the cage, he sees the window open where she must have pushed Niylah through. He pulls her out of there and into the next room.

“Clarke, you can’t be here,” he whispers. “You can’t—” What does he tell her? That there’s a sea witch waiting to kill her because he made a deal without thinking it through? There is no way he can tell her the whole truth right now, not when the ship is teetering closer to Octavia by the second. Tears threaten in his eyes, and he doesn’t know what to do. They’re trapped on a ship surrounded by water, and if Bellamy doesn’t stop it from reaching the sirens, the ship could go down. If Clarke so much as touches the water before Cage, she’s gone. He’ll lose her forever.

“I need to get that necklace,” Clarke says. For a second, he doesn’t remember what she’s talking about. “I don’t have time to explain but—"

Steps creep toward them, and Bellamy tries to shield Clarke from sight, but he’s not quick enough. Emerson sees her.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” he growls. When he lunges to Clarke, Bellamy steps between them.

“Do not touch me,” Clarke hisses from behind him. For all the confidence in her voice, he can feel her shaking against his back.

“This isn’t your kingdom, Princess. This is my ship,” Emerson says.

“Which is why I’d be very careful if I were you. From an outside perspective, this looks an awful lot like a kidnapping.” Emerson’s face falters. “Touch me, and that’s the story I tell. Do you want a public execution for crimes against the Crown?”

He puts his hands up defensively. “Just get up to the deck,” he mutters.

Clarke grabs Bellamy’s hand and pulls her along with him. She leans into him and whispers, “What are you doing here? Are you a siren hunter now?”

“No,” he reassures. “I am, uh…” There is no honest answer that he can tell her right this second. “I was trying to save Niylah,” he stutters out.

“Who is Niylah?”

“The siren.”

Clarke stops on the steps. Something flashes in her eyes, something he can’t make sense of. “How do you know her name?” she asks, and a lump forms in his throat. He’s almost grateful when Emerson urges them forward because Bellamy has no clue how to answer that question.

They fall silent for the rest of the climb up to the deck, and Cage is standing at the top, waiting for them.

“You,” he hisses at Clarke. His eyes don’t spare a glance in Bellamy’s direction. “Have you lost your mind?”

“I felt like sailing today,” Clarke replies indignantly. Her gaze drops to the necklace hanging around Cage’s neck. What was she trying to tell Bellamy about it? Did she really break out of the castle just for the necklace?

She turns and begins walking to the side of the ship. “Clarke, don’t,” Bellamy calls out, but she either doesn’t hear him or doesn’t care. Cage follows after her, and Bellamy isn’t far behind him. Her hands reach the rails, and his heart sinks. She’s too close to the water. Too close to ALIE.

“Get away from the water,” Cage hisses at her. “You want that thing to come back for you?”

“That’s one way I could stop you,” she replies with a laugh. Her eyes are still on Cage’s necklace. Her life is being dangled in front of ALIE’s hungry eyes, and all she is aware of is some necklace.

“Clarke, think of the sirens,” Bellamy warns. Clarke finally tears her gaze away from the shell and looks over at him. There’s something soft behind those blue eyes that slowly hardens into resolve. She looks back at Cage, who is trying to nudge her away from the rail.

“I am,” she replies before yanking the necklace from his neck, breaking the string in two. Cage starts to lunge, but Clarke is too quick and holds it over the water, just out of his reach. “Turn the ship around,” she tells him.

With her arm extended over the rails like that, it would be so easy for her to fall into the water. A shift in the waves, hitting the rocks… anything could send her flying into the water where ALIE waits to drag her down. Bellamy shakes as he tiptoes toward her. He needs to get her away. He needs to get her to safety. He can’t lose her. Not when he just found her again.

“Please, just turn the ship around,” Bellamy pleads with Cage, whose eyes are murderous on Clarke. A few men start to approach, but Clarke loosens her grip on the necklace, only catching it after Cage calls them off. It seems she was right about how important that necklace is to him. But why?

“Give it to me, and I will escort you home as soon as I find—”

“Now,” she growls. “Turn it around before the sirens—”

A familiar song rings out before Clarke can finish her sentence. Bellamy would know that haunting song anywhere.

It’s Octavia’s song.  


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just had a moment where I was like "which chapter am I uploading today I can't remember" before my eyes widened and realized it's THE chapter. Listen, I've been holding onto this fic idea for more than a year and it wasn't until I came up with what happens in this chapter that I had the inspiration to actually write it. I'm so excited to finally get this one posted. It's been burning in my drafts all this time, just itching to be posted. Whew.

Niylah must have told her about the ship. If Bellamy had been the one to free Niylah, he would have told her more about the situation, anything to deter Octavia from approaching. Then again, he isn’t sure anything he said would have mattered. He’s a traitor to them. Not only human, but onboard a siren hunter’s ship as well.

One song turns into two and then too many siren voices ring out. The men on the ship cover their ears desperately, but Clarke and Cage don’t. They hold each other’s gaze, waiting for the other to give up.

The song is getting to Cage. His hands twitch like he’s thinking about covering his ears but too proud to. But Clarke seems fine. There’s no sign of the daze the song put her under last time. But why not?

His eyes dart to the necklace she’s holding over the water, and he remembers the flash in Clarke’s eyes when he suggested it might be a good luck charm. Cage wouldn’t cling to something out of superstition, though. No, he would only be so desperate to keep it if it somehow helped him.

“I was right,” Clarke snaps. “This keeps you from being lured in by the siren song. It’s that witch Becca’s work, isn’t it?” So, the necklace protects from the song. No wonder he’s managed to make hundreds of these voyages and never have a scratch on him. Unlike his crew, Cage can have a sound mind and hunt unimpaired. Crew after crew dies off and he has been deemed a legend for miraculously surviving. But it’s not a miracle. It’s the work of a witch just like ALIE.

Cage’s jaw sets, and his eyes flicker toward the water. Behind him, Bellamy can see the tails moving through the water. It’s more than Octavia’s usual hunting party.

“Turn the ship around!” Cage screams, and Clarke pulls the necklace back toward her. He reaches for it, and Clarke jerks it out of his reach.

“I’ll be holding onto this until we reach land,” she growls. Bellamy steps between them and tries to pull her from the side of the boat. When he touches her shoulders, he can feel her shaking. Despite her composed demeanor, she’s terrified.

Bellamy has no idea what it feels like to be under a siren’s song, but as he looks at the other men starting to waver, it hits him that he feels nothing. Maybe ALIE gave him this one mercy. Or maybe she thought keeping him from being taken under a siren’s song would help him make the royal sacrifice she is so hungry for.

“We need to get off this ship,” he tells Clarke. There are a few lifeboats they could flee to. He made note of them as he killed time on the ship waiting for Cage to get close enough to the edge for Bellamy to push him.  

He tries pulling her, but her feet are firmly planted into the ground. Tears form in his eyes as he desperately tugs her along. Around them, the sailors are fighting against the songs, some worse than others. It won’t be long before the sirens get to Emerson and make him crash into the rocks. Bellamy needs to get her off this ship now before it’s too late.

“Clarke, please!”

“Why doesn’t the song affect you?” Clarke asks, an accusation in her voice.

Two splashes. Two bodies overboard already. Yet Bellamy stands frozen as his eyes lock with hers. Those blue eyes narrow, studying him. He tries to come up with another lie, but it’s like she said… he’s a terrible liar. Her eyes widen, and his throat grows dry.

“It is you,” she whispers, disbelieving. Clarke shakes her head slightly, and his heart pounds so loud he almost doesn’t hear the third splash. “No, I’m seeing things.”

“You’re not.”

Her eyes soften for just a beat, and a weight lifts off his chest. There’s relief in her eyes, relief that she isn’t going mad or relief that the siren she remembers is alive and well. Perhaps both.

Happiness floods him. She sees him. She’s always seen him better than anyone else, but now she can really see all of him. And she’s not running away or calling him weak. She’s reaching for his hand.

Their fingers barely touch before Cage grabs ahold of Clarke. His hand wraps around the necklace, trying to yank it from her.

“Give it back,” he yells. His eyes are dazed from the song. He’s gone mad. This is probably the first time a siren’s song has affected him. Hundreds of hunting voyages, yet never fully grasping the terror of it until this very moment. Bellamy almost feels sorry for him.

“Coward,” Clarke hisses, pulling back as hard as she can. Bellamy loops his arms around her waist and tries to pull her from Cage’s grip. If only she would let go of that necklace. “Letting dozens of men die while this thing kept you safe!”

“Let go,” Bellamy pleads. If a song takes Clarke, he’ll stop her from jumping in the water. But he isn’t sure he could protect her from Cage in his panicked state.

There is a loud crashing sound that vibrates through the floor boards. Rocks. They’ve been steered toward the rocks. Bellamy’s eyes flicker up to the helm, and Emerson’s eyes are glazed over as he steers the ship.

It gets louder, and the deck tilts beneath them. The crash forces Clarke let go, and Cage falls back to the edge of the ship. Reflexively, Bellamy tries to catch him. His hand almost gets a good grip on Cage’s, but his fingers slip through Bellamy’s and he hits the rail before slipping overboard.

His scream sends a chill up Bellamy’s spine. With that necklace in his possession, the siren’s song won’t put him in a daze. He’s protected from them, meaning the song won’t soften his death. No gentle drowning for him. Cage will feel every ounce of water filling his lungs as ALIE herself drags him down. A cruel, merciless drowning for a cruel, merciless monster.

Hands tug at him, and it takes him a beat too long to realize he’s sliding. Clarke has better footing than him and keeps him from falling down any further. She tugs him to the side of the ship, where they have the rail to help them.

“Where are the lifeboats?” she asks as they pull themselves up. Bellamy risks a look over his shoulder. The deck is still entirely above water, but that won’t last for long. He’s seen enough shipwrecks to know they have maybe minutes before it all crumbles into the unforgiving sea. Two of the lifeboats he took note of earlier are out in the water without a soul in them. He imagines a few members of the crew tried to escape but the siren’s song had already gotten to them and they jumped off the boats.

“There should be a two more up here,” he remembers. Bellamy keeps one hand on the rail and the other around Clarke’s waist as the difficult walk escalates into a climb. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Emerson looking over the edge. “Emerson!” he screams, but Emerson is unaffected by it. He smiles as he looks out at the water, and Bellamy knows it’s too late. He jerks his head away so he doesn’t see the jump. That does nothing to drown out the splash signaling that he’s gone too.

Human or siren, it doesn’t matter. Death still surrounds him, and he’s helpless to stop it.

No, not helpless. He can save Clarke. And he will. Even if it kills him.

One lifeboat still remains attached to the ship. Bellamy gets Clarke into it first before hopping over the rails and joining her. Her mind is still sound. There is no daze in her eyes from a siren’s song. The question of why tugs at him as she settles herself in front of one of the ropes, but he buries it down. It doesn’t matter. All that matters is that she’s safe from the song for now.

“I think we have to do something with these,” Clarke murmurs while fiddling with the ropes. A pit forms in his stomach as he realizes that Clarke doesn’t know what she’s doing, and neither does he.

“You think?” he blurts out.

“I don’t know! I haven’t been allowed on a boat since I was six!” she screams. Right, she hasn’t touched the water since Bellamy tried to kill her.

Both of them take a different rope. Bellamy just stares at the contraption holding the boat to the ship, hating himself for not paying closer attention this morning when the ship took off. Maybe if he were a real human, he could get them out of here. If he were a siren, he could swim and carry Clarke to safety that way. Still defective, even now. Weak.

The ship jerks harder, tilting the lifeboat with it. Clarke grabs onto his hand before he falls off the boat, and he regains his balance. His eyes fly to the water beneath them, and he makes out an all too familiar red tail. Octavia is just below them. Maybe Niylah told her about Bellamy, and she’s waiting for him. Or maybe she wants a princess to add to her collection of corpses.

“I got it,” Clarke calls out. Bellamy watches how she loosens the rope, slowly leveraging her half of the lifeboat down. He mimics the movements until it starts working for him too. The rope burns his hands as they frantically try to lower the boat down into the water.

When they hit the water, Clarke pulls them free of the ropes. They both get an oar in their hands and start to move away from the ship when Bellamy sees two pale, scaly hands reach up out of the water and grab onto the edge of the lifeboat.

“No!” he screams. Bellamy barely gets his arms around Clarke before the siren pulls down on the little boat and flips them and their oars into the water.

They let go of each other in the fall. Bellamy surfaces first, learning his lesson from last time. He’s about to go back under when Clarke’s head pops up out of the water. Wet, golden hair sticks to her face, a few strands finding their way into her mouth.

“Use your arms,” she pants out, and he falls under again. Under the water, he can see how Clarke uses her arms and legs to keep herself afloat. It’s not all that different than how he would keep his head above water while a siren. Why hadn’t he figured that out last time?

He gasps for air once he surfaces, and there’s a faint smile on her pale face as soon as she sees him. He’d give anything to keep seeing that smile.

But it doesn’t last long. Clarke falls under the surface too quickly like she’s being pulled, and her hand grips onto his shirt underwater. His hand wraps around her arm, and within seconds, Bellamy is being pulled under too.

He doesn’t let go.

The saltwater burns his eyes, but he refuses to shut them. They’re still close enough to the surface for Bellamy to see. All around them, he sees sirens dragging Cage’s crew members down into the dark. No sign of Cage himself, but he shouldn’t expect to see him ever again. The stories say that ALIE pulls her victims into the deepest, darkest parts of the sea, too dark even for sirens. Bellamy doesn’t even get to enjoy the relief of Clarke not being ALIE’s sacrifice, not when the end result might be the same.

On some level, he already knew who was pulling Clarke down. But this foolish, weak part of him still hopes to see Octavia’s red tail off in the distance, not below them with her hands around Clarke’s foot.

“Octavia!” he screams, forgetting that as soon as he opens his mouth, the water floods in. It burns just like it did before. The water is ice cold, yet his lungs feel like they’re on fire.

“Bellamy,” Octavia hisses so loud that he flinches. Her dark hair flows wildly around her face, occasionally obscuring the murderous glare she has trained on her brother. She didn’t know about him before, that much is clear by her shock and the way her eyes widen as she stares at his legs. Octavia must have come for Clarke. But now her focus is on her weak, traitorous, human brother. Good. Maybe Clarke can get back to the surface if Octavia comes after him.

While Octavia is distracted, Clarke kicks her in the face and tries to scramble away. She reaches for Bellamy, trying to pull him with her as she kicks up toward the surface, but Octavia recovers quickly and pulls Clarke back down.

Those blue eyes meet Bellamy’s, and they’re not the same gentle ones that he remembers from when he was a child. Clarke was soothed by the song then, unable to feel the pain of drowning.

But now, her eyes are wide with fear. None of the siren’s songs have gotten to her. How? She let go of the necklace. He doesn’t understand it until he remembers how she has been pulled to the ocean, pulled to Bellamy. After all these years, she’s still under his song, making it impossible for any of the other sirens to entrance her. And now, nothing can soothe her merciless drowning. If he were a siren, he could sing to her and at least let her feel weightless and happy in her last moments. But he can’t even do that.

“Let go,” Octavia growls at him. “Do you want to die too?”

Her voice is as harsh as he remembers, maybe more so than the day he last saw her and she struck him. But there’s an edge to it. A feeling he can only recognize because it’s consuming him right now as he watches Clarke’s eyes fall shut.

Panic.

Octavia doesn’t want him to die. Despite everything he is and chose to become, there is some part of her that still loves her weak, human brother. There’s a part of her that’s weak like him. Maybe enough to save him one last time.

His vision blurs, and he knows neither him nor Clarke have much time. Bellamy can’t save either of them. But there might be another way to get out of this. It just depends on Octavia loving her brother enough not to let him die.

“You weak idiot! Let go!” she screams.

Bellamy musters what little strength he has left to shake his head and wrap his arms around Clarke’s waist.

If she drowns, he drowns with her. If Octavia wants to kill her, she’ll have to drag Bellamy down too.

“You’ll die!” Octavia’s voice breaks, and for a second, he thinks she’s crying. But she can’t cry. He spares her one last glance, and he sees the scared little sister he remembers from their childhood. The one who hadn’t taken the advice to slay her demons so literally. Bellamy has only seen glimpses of this girl in the last few years. Once when their mother died. A few times after she lost Lincoln. And now, when she is about to kill the only living soul who still loves her.

His eyelids grow heavy, and he pulls himself closer to Clarke’s cold body. Her gold hair ripples all around his face, and he stares at her closed eyes just praying to see that beautiful blue one last time.

Bellamy leans forward and kisses her pale lips. They feel too cold, but they’re as soft as they felt on his cheek last night. It’s not much of a kiss, but it’s all they’ll ever have.

Clarke’s eyes open slightly, as if roused by the touch, and Bellamy gets one last glance at the beautiful eyes that have been drawing him to the surface and shore all these years. Then, they fall shut again.

 _Please_ , he begs to whoever might hear his thoughts. Please let him see those eyes again. Please let her live. Please let all the years of unconditional love be stronger than the darkness that has taken ahold of his sister.

The last thing he sees is her golden hair rippling through the water and the last thing he hears is his sister screaming, “Bell!” before everything goes black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright I'm off to my birthday brunch and getting day drunk.


	10. Chapter 10

There are no dreams. No thoughts that he can register. Just darkness one moment, and water coughing itself out of his throat the next. The saltwater burns as much going out as it did going in, and it never seems to stop. Bellamy heaves for what feels like hours before realizing that somehow he’s still alive.

Is Clarke?

His eyes flicker around him. He’s on a large, black rock right in the middle of the water. Several hundred yards away is a shoreline, though not the Arkadian one he’s familiar with. A few other rocks jut out of the water, but none of them have her on them.

“Clarke,” he tries to scream, but his voice is hoarse and he ends up coughing up more water.

“The girl?” he hears a familiar voice ask. Bellamy whips his head around to see half of his sister’s head above the surface. Her nose and mouth are hidden under the water, but those dark eyes are unmistakable.

“Yes, the girl,” Bellamy pleads.

Octavia’s eyes flicker to the side, and Bellamy follows her gaze to see their lifeboat hundreds of yards away. In the water below it, he sees light hair and a blue tail. The boat is slowly moving toward them, guided by Niylah.

Bellamy starts to move toward her, but Octavia pulls her entire head out of the water and says, “She’s okay.” Her words aren’t enough, not when she was just trying to kill her. But as Niylah brings the boat closer, he can finally make out Clarke lying inside it, her chest rising and falling in a steady rhythm.

“She’s alive,” he murmurs.

Octavia saved her. She saved both of them.

Clarke is drenched. Her hair is a tangled mess, and her dress looks as sopping wet as it did the night she saved him. Clarke’s eyes are shut, just like they were when he was clinging to her beneath the surface.

“She woke up before you and coughed up a lot of water,” Octavia tells him, and he lets out a relieved breath. Clarke probably just collapsed from exhaustion. “Now, what did you do?”

There’s an accusation in her voice, and it takes a moment for Bellamy to realize she’s asking about his human body. Anger floods him as he looks between Clarke’s unconscious body and his sister’s rage filled eyes.

“I had a heart as weak as a human’s, remember?” he hisses, and something shifts in Octavia’s gaze that he can’t make sense of. “There was nothing left keeping me in the ocean. So, I made a deal with ALIE.”

“You did what?” she screams. “You heard the stories. Have you lost your mind?”

“Maybe. But I’m happy as a human. And I’m finally out of your way, so I didn’t think you’d care.” Octavia looks like she’s just been slapped, and though she deserves to feel that sting, he feels bad for saying it.

Octavia’s gaze flickers back over to the lifeboat that holds Clarke, and she seems to be battling with something. She asks, “Did she really save Niylah?”

“They aren’t all bad,” Bellamy sighs. “She’s been protecting you too.” Octavia says nothing but tilts her head to the side. “You killed their king and kept murdering their sons and husbands and fathers. They put a price on your head, and Clarke tricked almost every siren hunter into looking for you in parts of the sea where sirens are never spotted.”

Octavia’s eyes flicker back to the lifeboat. For a moment, she looks impressed. But it fades quickly, and she mutters, “I didn’t need her help.”

“Would you have brought that many in your hunting party if she didn’t help Niylah escape so she could tell you what you were up against?” he snaps, and her jaw tenses as she tries to come up with a witty response. But there is none. Octavia would have brought a few with her. Not enough to overpower the ship like they did. And if Clarke hadn’t taken Cage’s necklace, the fiercest siren hunter alive would have been of clear mind and ready to kill Octavia.

He can feel his body shake as he realizes how close Octavia came to dying today. If Clarke hadn’t been on that ship, Bellamy isn’t sure he would have been able to stop Cage from killing his sister. No matter what his sister has put him through, he doesn’t want her dead. And it seems, she feels the same about him.

“Why did you—”

“You know why,” she mutters, not looking at him.

The lifeboat finally clangs against the rock. Clarke is still unconscious, lips parted. She looks so peaceful like this, not at all like the thrashing girl in the water in Octavia’s grasp.

Niylah’s head emerges from below the surface. “Give her my thanks,” she tells him before slipping back into the water.

Bellamy slips on the rocks as he tries to get closer to Clarke, and Octavia swims toward him as if readying to catch him. It warms him until he remembers this is the same Octavia that would have killed her.

“She’s my Lincoln,” he tells her, and her eyes widen at the sound of his name. Bellamy never speaks it. No one does out of fear of what Octavia would do at the reminder. “And you almost took her from me just like that hunter took him from you.”

She sinks further into the water, only her eyes above the surface now. She has no response to that, and he isn’t surprised. Octavia doesn’t know how to apologize or how to admit she was wrong. He’s not sure an apology would be enough, anyway.

Carefully, Bellamy steps into the lifeboat with Clarke. The boat shifts beneath him, but Octavia holds it steady as he sits down in it. He pulls Clarke’s head into his lap and begins patting at her cheeks. She coughs, and Bellamy turns her so she can cough up some of the salt.

“Do you hate me?”

He can barely hear Octavia’s whispered question over the coughing. Bellamy pats Clarke’s back as he turns to look at his sister. Octavia’s brown eyes are wide and scared, like he remembers them being when she was little. She hasn’t been scared in so long. He had thought her incapable of fear now. When she’s the most feared thing in the ocean, what could there be to fear?

“Do you hate me?” he asks in return.

There’s a faint shake of her head before a groan falls off Clarke’s lips. Octavia slips below the surface just as Clarke’s head falls back into his lap.

Her blue eyes blink up at him, disbelieving. Her lips form an ‘O’ as she struggles to pick a first question to ask. After a few seconds of deliberation, she just utters, “How?”

“My sister,” he sighs. “The one who, uh, tried to kill you. I figured out how to make her stop.”

“Your sister,” she repeats. Her voice sounds worse than his. “Your sister is Blodreina.”

“Octavia,” he corrects. Bellamy grips the wooden seat below him, bracing for whatever reaction Clarke had to the horrifying revelation that the siren who killed her father is Bellamy’s little sister.

But there are no screams or cries, just slow blinks as she processes it. “I think you need to start at the beginning,” she sighs.

“The beginning?”

“The day you almost… killed me,” she whispers, and his eyes fall shut. His chest aches at the sound of those words falling off her lips.

Bellamy takes a few deep breaths before lying down beside her. He can feel himself begin to shake again, but then Clarke reaches out and touches his cheek. His eyes flutter shut again as he lets her gentle touch soothe him.

“You were supposed to be my first kill,” he starts. Bellamy relays the story of that day to her, from how he got the bruises she saw on him to the beating he received when he returned to his family without a kill. Clarke’s face contorts and winces each time he references what his step father did to him, so he glosses over the rest of his childhood. Bellamy instead focuses on Octavia and how she transformed from a strong, respected siren to the bloodthirsty hunter that terrorized the human race.

Clarke’s eyes well with tears when he explains what happened to Lincoln. His heart skips a beat as she pulls closer to him and rests her head on his chest. Bellamy takes a small break from the story to get his arm around her.

He doesn’t watch her for the rest of it. His eyes stay on the clouds, watching the blue skies grow darker as the sun begins to set. But he threads his fingers through her damp, tangled hair as he speaks, not sure if he’s trying to soothe her or himself.

“ALIE is real?” Clarke asks as soon as he mentions the deal. “I thought that witch Becca was making her up.”

“Very real and terrifying,” he mutters. “Never make a deal with her.”

“What deal did you strike?”

Bellamy swallows before whispering, “A royal sacrifice in exchange for being human.” He can feel Clarke tense beside him but makes no move to pull away. “If I had known you were a Princess, I never would have—”

“It’s okay,” she murmurs.

“It’s not. I agreed without thinking it through. And ALIE almost killed you because of me.” Clarke’s head pops up and she stares at him in confusion. “She said she would take the next royal who touched the water as payment.”

Clarke blinks a few times before whispering, “Cage. That’s why you were on the ship. You were going to sacrifice him before ALIE could get to me.”

“It was either you or him, and I wasn’t about to lose you. Not after I spent my whole life—” He cuts himself off, realizing a little too late that he is revealing more than he wants to. Any hope that Clarke doesn’t catch on is extinguished as soon as he meets those curious blue eyes.

“Spent your whole life what?”

“Dreaming of you,” he confesses, and her whole expression softens. Her hold on his shirt tightens, and her teeth dig into her bottom lip. “I, uh, I just… I could never stop thinking about you.” The rest of it comes spilling out before he can stop himself. “You were so beautiful and warm and kind, and after that day, there was nothing in my life like that. I started hanging out near the surface where it was warm like you and drifting to the shore to feel close to you. I was always wondering what your life was like, daydreaming about it like you were an old friend I was visiting.” He pauses before adding, “My only friend.”

“Bellamy,” she whispers, and his name sounds so beautiful on her chapped lips. He pulls her closer as the first of the tears form in his eyes. Clarke’s fingers find their way to his cheek again, touching him the same way she did all those years ago. Her eyes are watery too, and it takes all the strength in him not to sob. “I dreamed of you too.”

He knows it’s true. The way she spoke of her siren before told him that it is the same for her.

“Why did you get on that ship, Clarke?” he rasps. “Was it just to stop him from becoming the next king?”

“That, and…” Her head drops and a quiet sob escapes her. “… and I was scared that one day he would kill a siren and I’d never feel that pull to the ocean… to you again.”

The weight of what she just said doesn’t hit him until he gets at eye level with her and sees the fear behind her eyes. Fear for him and his life. Fear so strong that Clarke was willing to face the ocean again after it nearly took her last time. Fear as strong as his fear of losing her.

His free hand cups her cheek. Their faces are just inches apart, so close that he can feel her exhales against his lips. He thinks of that desperate kiss below the surface. His fingers trail over her lips, replaying that moment over and over again. It’s like he can finally breathe again as he traces her soft lips. It finally hits them that they’re safe. Cage is gone, and his death will probably kill off any other siren hunter’s hope of collecting the Queen’s bounty. His deal with ALIE is complete, meaning Clarke is safe. And Octavia spared them. They’re safe. Stranded out in the water, yes, but safe.

“Bellamy,” she whispers. He has been so focused on her lips that he missed how her eyes beam at him. The blue is nearly impossible to make out as the skies grow darker, but the warmth behind her eyes cannot be missed.

Clarke tilts her head up to him, and he cannot figure out what she is doing until he feels her lips press into his. She pulls away too soon, and something in his chest lurches.

“Again,” he pleads, and a sweet giggle falls off her lips.

Clarke kisses him again, and this time, he manages to kiss her back. Her lips are warm as they graze against him. It’s more of an exhale than a kiss, like he’s been struggling for air all these years and he can finally breathe easily. Their lips hardly move. They just rest against each other, savoring their first real touch.

Their eyes find each other in the dark, and Clarke whispers, “I love you.” Her lips move against his as she speaks, but never quite leave them. He kisses her harder now, no longer exhaling but searing his lips into hers with all the longing he’s been burying down. Her hand cups his cheek as if trying to hold onto him, and he feels her suck in a shaky breath just as her lips part for him. How can something as simple as breathing flood him with such relief and love all at once?

Bellamy has to pull himself back so he can return those beautiful words. “I love you too,” he murmurs. But once isn’t enough. He keeps whispering it between kisses, as does she, and they cling to each other like they cannot be close enough.

He isn’t sure how long they lie there like that. It feels like minutes but the position of the moon says hours. They might have both drifted to sleep for a while. All he knows is that they stay pressed against each other, both too afraid to let go.

A slight shift in the current finally rouses him, and he raises his head just in time to see just a sliver of a red fin before it disappears into the water. Bellamy pulls Clarke up with him as he surveys their surroundings. On the other side is the shore where he first washed up and the Arkadian castle in the hills. His head swivels back around, and a hundred yards away, he sees the top of Octavia’s head pop up. Their eyes lock before she slips back into the water.

Octavia took them home.

“Bellamy,” Clarke whispers. He turns his head back around. There are dozens of men in guard’s uniforms out there. Some on the docks, others on the shore, and three familiar ones rowing out toward them.

Kane and Monty look relieved. Murphy looks annoyed. Why wouldn’t he be? Bellamy has probably caused him a lot of trouble today. And for once, he will be glad to hear the lecture.

“You two look awful,” Murphy calls out as they approach, and a loud, happy laugh escapes Clarke. There’s a beautiful smile accompanying it, and Bellamy can’t stop looking at her.

They help Clarke into their boat, then Bellamy. There isn’t much talk as they go back toward the shore, but right before they reach it, Kane whispers, “So, the Princess was kidnapped by Cage, correct?”

An odd look exchanges between Clarke, Monty, and Kane. Suddenly, their whispering yesterday makes sense. They were in on this. They must have helped her get onto the ship just like Murphy helped Bellamy.

“I tried to fight him off, but I’m too weak,” Clarke shrugs. “If it weren’t for Bellamy sneaking onboard to save me, I might have died out there.”

Everyone looks to Bellamy, and slowly, he pieces it together. This is the story they will tell. Not the one about Clarke trying to stop Cage and arguably committing treason by defying her mother’s order. Not the one about Bellamy plotting to kill a prince. And definitely not the one where Bellamy is the siren who almost killed Clarke.

“Thank goodness we escaped on the lifeboat before the ship was attacked,” he adds in, and the others all relax now that the story is straight.

Half a dozen guards wait for them on the shore, each tripping over themselves to help Clarke off the small boat. Hundreds of questions are asked, and Kane waves each of them off, telling everyone that Bellamy and Clarke are recovering and need rest. So, they get to return to the castle in relative peace. It’s a more exhausting trip than the last time he almost drowned, perhaps because Monty and Murphy are not flanking his sides and holding him up. But he does have Clarke’s hand in his, and that is enough to keep him going even though his muscles ache.

Clarke only lets go when they are inside and her mother comes barreling toward her. Queen Abigail clings to her like she’s terrified to let go, scared that if she did, she would lose her daughter for good this time. Tears stream down both of their faces, and her mother asks if Cage hurt her at least three different times.

Eventually, the Queen lets go. Her eyes find Bellamy, and before he can process what is happening, she’s wrapping her arms around him next. His eyes fly to Clarke, who lets out a choked laugh at his bewildered expression.

She pulls away, but her hands hold onto his arms as she looks up at him. “Thank you,” the Queen chokes out before letting go.

Oh. She was giving him a hug. A smile tugs at his lips as that realization sets in.

Clarke repeats the version of the story that they concocted before reaching the shore. Everyone in the room accepts it as fact, especially her mother. It’s a little too believable that Cage would abduct Clarke, making it the perfect lie.

Once the story is told and the scouts announce that they spotted what remained of Cage’s ship with no other survivors, Clarke and Bellamy are escorted to their own rooms to be cleaned up and looked at by a healer.

The healer deems him unharmed, just like last time. Bellamy is forced to take another bath, which he has to admit he doesn’t exactly hate. The purpose is still unknown, but now that Clarke knows what he used to be, he can ask her about it. In fact, Bellamy spends his entire bath forming his list of questions for her. He won’t have to observe and guess his way into acting human anymore. She can teach him.

Bellamy is tucked into bed, but he wants to see her again tonight. It’s probably out of the question. Clarke is normally locked into her room by now, and he imagines that both their guards are under strict instruction to keep them in bed to rest.

He’s about to push himself out of bed to try and see her anyway when his door creaks open. He half expects Murphy to appear to finally lecture Bellamy, but it’s Clarke whose head peers around the door.

“Bellamy,” she whispers.

“Clarke.” A smile creeps onto her lips as she slips into his room and quietly closes the door behind her. “What are you doing here?”

She wears a loose, white gown and no shoes, and her hair is messy, unlike the tamed curls she normally wears in the castle. Clarke pads toward him before he can push himself up in bed. “I can’t sleep,” she whispers with a shrug. “Kane agreed to look the other way just this once.” He laughs quietly. Murphy is probably asleep outside his door, letting Clarke enter without difficulty. “Scoot over.”

He slides over in his bed, confused until Clarke slips in beside him. There is no hesitation as she wraps an arm around his waist and rests her head on his chest again. After a few awkward adjustments, he’s holding her like he did on the lifeboat.

After a long silence, Clarke asks, “Did you know it was me right away?”

“As soon as I saw you, I knew.” He thinks back to the ship earlier and Clarke finally recognizing him. “But you didn’t recognize me until today, right?”

Her head tilts up to look at him and there is a frustrated expression on her face. “I knew you looked just like him, but I thought my mind was playing a trick on me,” she sighs.

His hand reaches up to touch her cheek, and a smile tugs at her lips. He whispers, “I’m sorry. I should have told you. But I wasn’t sure if—”

“I know.” Her hand rests over his, her skin impossibly warm and soft against his. “Are you… are you going to stay? Now that you get to remain human, I mean.”

“Stay here?” he asks.

“With me.”

Her eyes look nervous, but he cannot fathom why. She must know the answer. Bellamy isn’t sure he could stay away if he tried, not when he loves her so desperately. The question is really if Clarke wants him to stay.

“Please,” she adds, tightening her grip on his hand.

“I want to stay with you,” he promises, and she smiles again. That bright, brilliant smile that makes his heart stutter. His fingers trail down to touch her mouth, feeling that beautiful smile beneath his fingertips. He kisses her again. He kisses her so desperately and so many times one might think this is the last time he would ever get to kiss her. But it’s not. It’s the first of many, and that thought fills him with a warmth he could only dream of below the surface.


	11. Epilogue

“I have a plan,” Clarke whispers once they are no longer in earshot of the guards at the castle gates. Murphy and Monty trail behind them, close enough to protect them but far enough away to give them a bit of privacy.

“I didn’t care for your last plan,” Bellamy reminds her. He waves back when he sees a man on the street wave at them. It’s strange how many people recognize him already. He’s only lived on land for a month now. But he goes on these walks almost daily with Clarke so he can ask her more questions about being human without risking anyone overhearing in the castle. It’s kind of nice having people recognize him here. People seem happy to see him, which takes some getting used to.

“It all turned out okay,” she shrugs.

“We almost drowned,” he groans.

“Alright, I have a plan that doesn’t involve a ship,” she corrects. “And Monty and Murphy are willing to look the other way.”

Bellamy’s brows furrow as he looks over his shoulder. Murphy and Monty are whispering conspiratorially, and he doesn’t like that one bit. Unwilling to be the only one out of the loop, Bellamy gives in and asks, “A plan for what?”

“The bounty on your sister.”

It’s not that Bellamy has forgotten about it. But in the past few weeks, there has been little talk of sirens. No more Arkadian ships have gone under, and there have been no sightings by scouts. The siren hunters who have been lingering around the castle have all scurried home after hearing in gory detail what happened to Prince Cage, the best of the hunters. Even though Octavia is still alive and the Queen hasn’t rescinded the bounty, no one seems willing to risk their lives for it anymore. It’s as if they all think that if Cage could be beaten, then none of them stand a chance.

Clarke has said this will pass with time. Six months ago, another siren hunter met a horrifying fate, and interest in the quest to take down Blodreina dwindled for a while. Then, new hunters emerged and old ones forgot to be afraid, and it ramped up again.

But now, his sister has ceased her attacks. Or at the very least, she’s taken up residence in another part of the sea. He wonders about that a lot at night, sometimes tempted to go down to the shore and ask ALIE where Octavia is. But he knows better than to risk it. Still, he and Clarke sneak by the shore often in their walks, and he finds himself searching the water, looking for any sign of her red tail. He hasn’t yet. But Octavia knows where he is, and one day, she’ll let him find her again. He knows she will. Because despite everything, she loves him, and he loves her. They’re family even if one of them is a siren and the other is a human.

“We’ve talked about this. I don’t think they’ll ever find her,” Bellamy sighs.

“I still want the bounty gone.”

He does too. The idea of Clarke being married off to some hunter makes him sick, however slim those chances are. Bellamy assumed after the incident with Cage the Queen would call it all off, but she never did. The Queen wants to, but too many nobles are still wanting justice for King Jacob and won’t let her.

“Alright, what is your plan?” he asks. Grinning, Clarke interlaces her fingers with him and tugs him down a street he’s never seen before. “Clarke,” he laughs.

“I can’t convince her to take it back,” she explains. “So, I need to take away the bounty she is offering. Make it so she can’t offer up my hand.”

“What? Are you planning to run away?” he chuckles. He can’t imagine Clarke running from her own kingdom, not when she will be such a good queen one day. And the nobles respect her now more too, no longer fearing her “madness”. Word got out all over Arkadia that Clarke no longer is pulled to the ocean. The general consensus is that she is finally free of the siren’s song, and neither Bellamy nor Clarke want to disavow the Arkadians of that notion by telling the truth.

“No, of course not,” she giggles. She stops to look up at him, her smile as bright as ever. Clarke has been in a positively lovely mood all morning, and he’s beginning to think this plan of hers is responsible. “If I am already married, my mother cannot offer my hand anymore. Then, no more bounty.”

“But you aren’t already married.”

“Not yet,” she grins, taking a step toward him. “That’s where you come in.”

“That’s where I—” He stops and gapes at her. She can’t be suggesting what he thinks she’s suggesting. But as he stares at her, it becomes clear that this is exactly what her plan is. “You want to marry me?”

“Right now, if you aren’t too busy,” she says with a wide smile.

Bellamy thinks about marrying Clarke every single day, but he had thought it couldn’t be this simple. After all, princesses marry princes or nobles. And though Clarke loves him as much as he loves her, he assumed it would take a lot of persuading for the Queen to allow it to happen. It never occurred to him that the two of them could just marry. It probably should have considering how little Clarke cares for following the rules. This is the girl who dove into the water to save Bellamy after being forbidden from going near the ocean her whole life. This is also the girl who snuck onto a siren hunter’s ship to save her siren. He shouldn’t be surprised that Princess Clarke of Arkadia has decided to sneak off to marry the man she loves too.

“Is this allowed?” he asks.

“It is if my mother doesn’t learn about it until after it is already done,” Clarke replies. When Bellamy looks for Monty and Murphy, he finds them both pretending to look for Bellamy and Clarke in an exaggerated manner. Murphy peers inside a crate and then gasps when he finds no princess in there. Monty makes a distressed yelp and dramatically falls against a brick wall in defeat.

“They’re going to tell her that we ran off and that when they found us it was too late,” he realizes before breaking out in a laugh. “For once, I like your plan.”

Clarke shifts up onto her toes and presses a quick kiss to his lips. “I knew you would,” she replies before pulling him by the wrist. He trips over his own feet as he follows her, too excited to watch his step.

She takes him inside a small building where an elderly woman stands on the other side of an aisle. Lit candles fill the dark room, giving it a soft glow. Bellamy looks at Clarke, giving her the same look he always does when he wants her to explain a human thing.

“It’s a church,” she tells him. Is this why Clarke explained what a church is yesterday? It seemed so irrelevant because his questions were all about clothing at the time, but now he sees that she was preparing for today. “Vera,” she calls out to the woman, and she smiles at Clarke.

“Your Highness,” Vera says as Clarke guides Bellamy by the hand down the aisle. “I wasn’t sure I believed my son when he told me you were coming.”

“Your son?” he asks.

“Marcus Kane.”

Bellamy gives Clarke a pointed look. Even Kane was in on this before Bellamy knew what Clarke was planning. Her bottom lip forms a pout before he can even pretend to be upset, and with a sigh, he kisses the top of her head.

“Alright. He said the two of you will have to do this quickly,” Vera says with a small shake of her head.

“Our guards will find us any moment,” Clarke explains, not even attempting to keep a straight face. Vera gives a wink before turning to retrieve a book.

She begins the ceremony by reading off strange passages he has never heard before. Clarke appears to follow it, so it must be another human thing. Sirens don’t have weddings. They just decide they are spouses one day, and that’s that.

But humans have more ceremonial requirements. Clarke has explained a lot of it over the past week, which should have been his first clue about today. There is a proposal, which Bellamy was supposed to do but Clarke did instead. Well, it wasn’t so much her asking Bellamy to marry her as much as bringing him to a church and telling she wants to get married. Then, an engagement, which for them lasted as long as it took to walk from the street to the end of the aisle. He imagines most humans stay engaged longer than two minutes. And finally, a ceremony full of declarations of love and promises for the future. That part they do seem to have right.

Vera asks them to repeat a few phrases, all of which are promises they have already made to each other. She asks each of them if they will take the other as their spouse, and they both agree. Then comes a ritual where Vera ties a decorative ribbon around their joined hands. She calls it the binding ceremony.

She talks about the two of them being bound together for life as if it is some new concept. But Bellamy and Clarke have been bound to each other since he first sang to her twelve years ago. They’ve been pulling each other in for more than a decade, both desperate to join again. And now, they can’t seem to stay apart. Every meal together, long afternoon walks, and sneaking into each other’s room every night as the guards knowingly look the other way. She’s the first thing he sees in the morning and the last thing he sees at night. And in the hours where they are asleep, he sees her in his dreams. It’s like he spent his whole life missing this piece of himself, and now that he has found her, he can’t bear to be apart from her.

“You may kiss your bride,” Vera tells him after untying their hands.

Clarke giggles in excitement as Bellamy pulls her in by the waist. It’s such a beautiful sound that he hates to interrupt it with a kiss, but he does anyway. One kiss turns to two turns to Bellamy pressing kisses all over Clarke’s face as she squeals and giggles.

“Oh no,” Murphy’s monotone voice calls out, and they finally turn their attention away from each other to see Monty and Murphy by the door. “We are too late, Monty.”

“Whatever shall we do?” Monty sighs.

Clarke tucks her head into Bellamy’s shirt to muffle her laughter, and Bellamy just shakes his head at them. They keep going, but he turns his attention back to his wife.

_Wife_. The word seems so strange yet perfect. He wants to test it out.

“You’re my wife now,” he whispers to her, and Clarke stops laughing and pulls her head up to look at him. Her blue eyes are soft and happy, happier than he ever remembers seeing them which says a lot because they have been so happy these past few weeks.

“And you are my husband,” she says triumphantly.

“Alright, you two. We’re going to have to bring you back to the Queen,” Murphy says in a mock stern voice.

They intertwine their fingers and follow Murphy and Monty out the door. No one says much as they head back to the castle, which is just as well because Bellamy cannot focus on anything except his wife and the beautiful smile on her pink lips.

Once back in the castle, they both head straight for the Queen’s study. Her head pops up as soon as they enter the room, and her eyes flicker between them. With a sigh, she rests her head on her hand and asks, “What are you two up to?”

“Bellamy and I eloped,” Clarke announces. Surprise flashes across her eyes for all of one second before a smile cracks through her lips. She gives Clarke an odd look, like she knows exactly what Clarke’s plan is.

“Eloped?” she sighs, shaking her head despite the smile still present on her face. “As your queen, I am very upset with you both because now I am now forced to cancel the bounty.” Whatever annoyance she tries to feign is betrayed by the soft way she looks at the two of them. Maybe she suspected this would happen. At the very least, it seems to have been a possibility in the back of her mind. Besides, after everything with Cage, everyone knows the Queen has changed her mind about the hunt for Blodreina and just needs an excuse to call it off. “As your mother, I ask that we keep this quiet until we can put together a proper wedding. No one wants a scandal.”

Clarke lets go of Bellamy to run to her mother and throw her arms around her. One of the Queen’s arms wraps around Clarke’s back, the other stays extended, gesturing for Bellamy to join. He steps into their embrace, warmth coursing through him as he is enveloped by his new human family.

When they finally separate, Clarke’s mother plants a kiss on her cheek and sighs, “You’re too much like your father, I swear.”

Clarke just laughs and takes Bellamy’s hand again before pulling him out of the study. They barely make it three steps out the door before Clarke is pulling him down for a kiss. A blush creeps onto his cheeks when he spots the guard standing outside the door, purposefully averting his eyes.

“I thought we are trying to avoid scandal,” he whispers, fighting back a laugh.

Clarke follows his eyes before giggling. “The whole castle already knows we’re in love,” she shrugs.

The guard nods, fighting back a smile. Bellamy cannot imagine the gossip that must circulate about them. Between Murphy’s exaggeration of Bellamy’s heroics while “saving” Clarke from Cage’s ship and the guards gossiping about them sharing a bed each night, there is no way the two of them are without scandal. But no one seems to mind or judge them. In fact, everyone seems happy for them. Mostly happy for Clarke, but there’s a good deal of affection for Bellamy too. A month ago, he was all alone, and now, he’s surrounded by people who care for him and married to a woman who loves him.

They end up on the deck overlooking the ocean. Standing hand in hand, they watch the ships come sailing in for a few minutes. He can feel Clarke buzzing beside him, too excited about today to stay quiet for much longer.

“I’m going to have to teach you to dance,” she says, finally breaking the silence. “We’ll have to dance at our proper wedding.”

“I take it you like dancing.”

“I think you will too.” She pulls him away from the railing, and he laughs as she positions one of his hands on her waist and keeps the other in her hand. Then, she settles her other hand on his shoulder.

“Is this all I have to do?” he asks, and she shakes her head.

“For now, just make your feet follow mine and try not to step on them,” she chuckles. She moves one foot back and says, “Take a step forward.” He narrowly misses her toe, and both of them let out a sigh of relief before laughing.

They do this a few more times, sometimes making him step to the side or backwards, and after a few tries, he doesn’t have to think about it. He just moves at the same time as her, falling into an easy rhythm. He isn’t sure how long they practice, but the sun starts to set when he finally feels comfortable enough to look away from his feet and look at his wife.

“What is the point of dancing?” It’s a question he asks about everything. It’s not to poke fun or be sarcastic like Murphy. It’s to understand its place in the human world.

“Fun,” she giggles. “There will be music in the background and other couples dancing. Do you like it?”

“I think so.” Their feet slow until Clarke guides them into a slow sway. Bellamy pulls her in by her waist and rests his forehead on top of hers. He likes this better, if for no other reason than because he’s closer to her.

Her hand leaves his and wraps around his neck. Her cheek rests against his chest as they sway together.

“I love you,” she whispers. It doesn’t matter how many times she says it… his heart still skips a beat every time.

“And I love you.” Bellamy kisses the top of her head. “More than I ever thought possible.”

“Is this all real?” she asks. “Did we really get married today?”

“It was your idea,” he laughs, and she pops her head up to scrunch her nose at him. “A brilliant idea, of course.”

“Best one I ever had.” He kisses the top of her nose, and she squeaks in surprise. Bellamy can’t help but chuckle at the little sound. When his laughter finally subsides, Clarke pushes up on her toes and presses her lips to his.

Bellamy wonders if he could ever be as happy as he is right now, but he wonders that every day. And somehow, each day, he finds a way to be happier than the day before. Clarke, the person he can finally confide everything in and who sees him in a way no one has ever seen him before, is a big part of that. But it’s also his friends with strange senses of humor and the Queen who gives him hugs and Kane who calls him son every now and then. Each are pieces he was missing back in that cold sea, and he gets the feeling that he is a piece they were all missing too. Bellamy feels wanted here.

Finally, he has found a place where he feels loved. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for joining me on this little siren journey. I've been on a fairytale kick lately and have had so much fun working on this fanfic. I'm on Twitter and Tumblr as @asroarke, so feel free to stop by and say hello. If you liked this work, then you might want to check out the [ Drag Me Down playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6O8FLqaFkVf6V2EIcEoufE?si=F8PMPMYIS6SSouzZFkM1WA) I've put together for it. And if you haven't already, be sure to check out electricalice's [ gorgeous fanart](https://electricalice.tumblr.com/post/186447781487/asroarkes-drag-me-down-is-an-amazingly-dark). It's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen in my life and I stare at it regularly.
> 
> Anyway, thanks for all the love and feedback! Love y'all!


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